Because there is very conflicting reports, in NA, about this. Please answer.
Home | Because there is very conflicting reports, in NA, about this. Please answer.
Define "in control".Originally Posted by The Baron
“This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it.â€
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader
True, this is imprecise...
1)Is the town encircled ?
2)Is, globally, the situation is under control for the IDF ? (ie, ''Hezbo'' more or less doomed)
3)Is there 20 casualties or 20 fatalities in IDF ranks ?
From what I'm picking up, the town is sealed off and the Israeli soldiers are doing a house-to-house sweep from the outskirts towards the center. The battle is the heaviest one so far, with many engagements being literally face to face. The Hizbullah claims the IDF hasn't yet taken the town center, but even if so, its only a matter of time.
The IDF has suffered 30 wounded in the battle, three of them seriously, two moderately and the rest lightly. Hizbullah casualties count is, as usual, pretty hard to find but the Jerusalem Post puts it at over 50 fatalities, out of estimated 200 total Hizbullah gunmen holed up in the village at the moment the battle began. The number of Hizbullah wounded is unknown.
“This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it.â€
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader
Bint Jbeil still standing,and there was an attack on Marun el Rass again
do you think its over when you enter the village? it just starts!
you can try http://www.tayyar.org
but the sites of the resistance are down for now, I will inform you when its online again
Celebrating an "attack" on Maroun al-Ras that gets no where,
meanwhile Lebanon the nation falls into economy depression, with unemployment surpassing 50 percent, no financial reserves, just about every investment has fled
Economic collapse is imminent --> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14015377/
but there was an attack" on Maroun al-Ras .......
Yahoo had reported 12 killed per Dubai media
Israeli Army confirms 8 soldiers killed, 22 wounded in day’s fighting in Bin Jubeil, South Lebanon Wednesday per Debkafile
July 26, 2006, 8:28 PM (GMT+02:00)
In the evening, fierce fighting flared up again between Israeli ground forces and Hizballah in same Shiite stronghold. Another five Israeli soldiers were injured as firefights raged also in the area between Bin Jubeil and Maroun er Ras in South Lebanon’s Central Sector.
Fresh Israeli air strikes against the area around the port of Tyre. The six-storey headquarters of Hizballah’s South Lebanon’s commander was destroyed.
Olmert unsurprised by level of Hezbollah resistance
30 soldiers hurt in heavy clashes around Bint Jbail, five hurt in Maroun Ras By Peter Hirschberg, Haaretz Haaretz Service and News Agencies Some 30 Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded Wednesday in fierce gun battles with Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail.
The IDF later successfully retrieved its wounded soldiers, even as the heavy clashes continued.
The troops became involved in close-quarter fighting with Hezbollah guerillas in the early hours of Wednesday, despite taking control of the town a day earlier. The fighting has been going on since.
Five more IDF soldiers were wounded later Wednesday when Hezbollah guerrillas fired a Russian-made anti-tank missile at troops in the southern Lebanon village of Maroun Ras, which had been in Israeli hands for days, medics said.
At a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that Israel was not surprised by the extent of the Hezbollah's resistance in Bint Jbail.
During the meeting, Olmert's aides periodically updated him regarding IDF casualties in the southern Lebanese town. But, according to committee members, Olmert kept his cool, and maintained focus on the three-hour meeting itself.
On Wednesday evening, Israel Air Force jets struck targets in southern Lebanon, among them a vehicle being used by Hezbollah in the southern port city of Tyre, and three buildings, including the command center of the Shiite Amal organization in the Ansariyah area.
IAF warplanes destroyed the offices of Hezbollah's south Lebanon commander in Tyre on Wednesday, security officials and witnesses said. The building was empty but 12 people nearby were injured.
The two explosions in the center of the city raised a giant pall of smoke over Tyre, and electricity was knocked out in some areas.
The target was seven-story building housing the office of Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon. The building was heavily damaged, the top floors were pancaked on top of each other. But witnesses and doctors said it was believed to be empty
In a neighboring building that was also damaged, 12 people were injured, including six children. Among them were a woman and child who were seriously wounded, said Dr. Ahmad Mroue at Tyre's hospital.
Earlier in the day, IAF jets located a rocket launching crew, which was trying to flee the area after firing a rocket. The group were in a vehicle which had the launcher attached and which was targeted from the air.
On Tuesday, IDF infantry and armored corps soldiers surrounded the Hezbollah stronghold, but decided against seizing the entire town.
Military officials said Golani Brigade infantry troops initially surrounded the village Tuesday, imposed a closure and took some houses on the outskirts.
Eight IDF soldiers were lightly wounded in fighting in the area early Tuesday and seven of them were evacuated to hospitals in Israel. Fifteen soldiers remain hospitalized in Nahariya from earlier battles with Hezbollah.
Also Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that he has ordered a thorough investigation into an Israel Air Force strike on a UN base in southern Lebanon, in which four peacekeepers were killed.
Israel Air Force jets struck 15 rocket-launching sites northeast of the Lebanese town of Tyre on Tuesday morning as well as various Hezbollah targets, including vehicles, weapons storage sites and close to 18 buildings used by the Shi'a organization's operatives all over Lebanon.
IAF missiles struck a house in south Lebanon early Tuesday, killing seven people and wounding one other, Lebanese hospital and security officials said.
IAF jets fired a missile at the house in the market town of Nabatiyeh, destroying it and killing its owner, a man named Mohammed Ghandour, his wife and five children, the sources said. It was not immediately clear why the IAF had targeted the house.
Two IDF soldiers were killed and 14 troops were wounded Monday during combat in Bint Jbail. The casualties were identified First Lieutenant Lotan Slavin, 21, of Moshav Hatzava, and Staff Sergeant Kobi Smileg, 20, of Rehovot.
The IDF believes Hezbollah, which does not release details about casualties it sustains, lost at least 10 gunmen in the Bint Jbail battle.
Bint Jbail, a major town, is about 2 kilometers north of the hilltop village of Maroun al-Ras, another Hezbollah center. Over the weekend, IDF ground troops fought for control of Maroun al-Ras, which is less than 500 meters from the border.
Some 30 Hezbollah fighters were killed by the IDF during battles in Maroun al-Ras. The IDF was preparing to bring the bodies of some of them back into Israel.
IAF resumes strikes on Beirut
A series of at least four heavy blasts were heard in Beirut on Tuesday afternoon, the first Israel Air Force strikes in the city in nearly two days. A gray cloud billowed up from the capital's southern district, a Hezbollah stronghold that has been heavily bombarded.
Nearly daily pounding halted during U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Beirut on Monday. The afternoon strikes were the first in the city since Sunday evening.
The quick succession of blasts set off car alarms in central Beirut, kilometers (miles) from the southern neighborhood known as Dahiyah, and sirens were heard. More, smaller explosions followed, then came a fifth powerful blast. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Al-Jazeera television said 20 Israeli rockets hit Dahiyah
Like I told you in that other thread, sooner or later the drug will wear off.Bint Jbeil still standing,and there was an attack on Marun el Rass again
do you think its over when you enter the village? it just starts!
I'd rather try something trustworthy instead, thanks.you can try http://www.tayyar.org
Ynet has just reported that the total IDF casualties count in the battle has just been cleared for publication: 8 soldiers dead, 3 seriously wounded, 4 moderately wounded, 15 wounded lightly.
A tough battle, to be sure, but no tougher than Jenin was, and considering that it was the Hizbullah's primary stronghold and that the Hizbullah is much better armed and fortified than the Palestinians, the IDF has definitely done well.
The Golani brigade are still in the village, the Nahal is moving on to the next one.
“This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it.â€
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader
If the idf are saying :the number of dead is 8,it must be at least the double,knowing the track record of the idf hiding facts on the ground,however,a lot of channels around the world mentioned,13 dead and 32 wounded(plus a not confirmed news that,some israeli intelligence gathering operatives have being ambushed and killed,I reiterate again this last bit has not being confirmed).
Even Ynet has given conflicted reports on this one. At one point they said Israel had taken control of the village, then issued the follow up report when Israel had just entered the village.
LOL! How little you know this country. You can NEVER hide things like casualty numbers in Israel. Hell, you can hardly hide ANYTHING. I recall when the Americans gave Israel the top secret info about the time of their invasion of Iraq, it appeared in the newspapers within hours, because you can't hide any secret here. The country is too small, like a village where everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows.
“This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it.â€
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader
[.. the IDF has definitely done well. ..]
I couldn't agree more - they're magnificent.
It's going a slow, methodical slog -- but an IDF that's fighting for home and country will prevail.
So on-the-ground media is untrustworthy but media getting its info through the filters of the Mossad is trustworthy? HAHA!
Waaaaaay too subjective
If the number of casualties is 1 you can be sure that Nigel Parry over at electronintifada as well as the morons at counterpunch are already scribbling posts calling it a massacre. they pull numbers out of their ears, spread it around to the pro Arab blogs and it becomes instant truth.
In a related area, we've seen the 'Pierre Salinger Effect' which says that "Anything you see on the internet is True." For instance here is a story of Holocaust survivors who are called fakes by strange antisemites and then for whatever reason it becomes the gospel truth to Google.
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/tilove072006.html
Dachau Survivor's Reputation Wanders Turbulent Terrain of the Internet BY Jonathan Tilove
c.2006 Newhouse News Service
Solly Ganor survived the death camp at Dachau. But at 79, he doesn't know if he will survive what an odd Holocaust Web site, run by a Jewish refugee in Massachusetts, has done to his reputation.
Ganor, who lives in Israel, wrote a well-received memoir in 1995 -- "Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale." He began lecturing about his experience in schools in the United States, Israel, Europe and Japan.
But for the last couple of years, if you run a Google search on "Solly Ganor," one of the top results is a page from ISurvived.org operated by Kalman K. Brattman in the Boston suburb of Malden. "Solly Ganor Case of Credibility and Deceit," it reads, "questioning his claims and representation of the Holocaust and his alleged autobiographical book."
At Ganor's appearances, students began asking whether he was, as a Google search suggested, a fraud.
"I feel like the character in Kafka's `The Trial,"' Ganor says -- hounded and helpless.
With the Internet, the world entered a new information age of thrilling speed, breadth and openness, but also, sometimes, of Kafkaesque menace. It once was nearly impossible to ruin another person's reputation in every corner of the globe without spending an awful lot of money. Not anymore.
Ganor's story is a cautionary tale of this changing geography. Here is the enhanced capacity of a single savvy individual to spread insinuation in ways that gain authority with a mass audience inclined to believe that where Google shows smoke, there must be fire. Here, too, is the tremendous imbalance of power between those for whom the Internet is home and those for whom it is a strange and scary place.
"The Internet is like the Wild West," Ganor says. "It seems like there are not any rules at all."
Googling "Solly Ganor" returns some 10,000 results in an instant. But what really matters is what comes up on the first page. A shadow of doubt is cast, and the damage is done.
A click on the link to ISurvived plunges you into a tome by the site's "managing editor," there identified as K.K. Brattman. It is a scattershot assault intended to tatter Ganor's credibility.
Why did Ganor change his name? (Many Jewish emigres to Israel did.) What's his real age? (He learned belatedly that he is a year older than the year used in his book.) How could he know so many languages? (He spoke Lithuanian, Russian, German, Yiddish and some English.) How could he have kept a diary in the Kovno, Lithuania, ghetto? (Ganor says he disposed of it when he arrived in the first of two concentration camps; he reconstructed it after the war.)
Plunked in the middle of the diatribe, next to a huge exclamation mark, is a stunning disclaimer: "Let us begin by noting that we have no direct evidence of any sort on Solly Ganor." What you are reading, Brattman writes, "is but our opinion for what it's worth."
Ganor considered suing, but was told it could prove expensive and futile. He complained to the major Internet search engines. If ISurvived didn't rank so high in their results, the fulminations it contains would be distant cries in the cyber-wilderness.
Google advised Ganor to file a "spam report" if he thought Brattman was gaming their algorithms, which calculate rankings based on a Web page's links to other pages pertinent to a given search. But he should be specific: Did he suspect Brattman of using deceptive redirects, doorway pages, hidden texts, or misleading or repeated words?
Google software engineer Matt Cutts looked at ISurvived and saw no evidence of any deceptive practice intended to fool the company's Web crawler. If Google, with its motto "Don't be evil," doesn't screen out character assassins, what then?
"The wonderful thing about the Web," Cutts responds, "is that anybody can put their own message out there. The answer to bad speech is more speech."
Who is Kalman Brattman?
Born May 1, 1944, he escaped Romania in 1969 after graduating first in his class from the University of Bucharest, where he studied astronomy.
And while Brattman hasn't had to confront Solly Ganor in court, he has experience with the American legal system.
In 1979, acting as his own counsel, he was convicted of assaulting a college student with intent to rape. Court records show Brattman pulled a stranger into his Harvard Square apartment and began attacking her until, frantic, she told him she didn't believe in premarital sex. He let her go.
Again representing himself, Brattman overturned the verdict on appeal, because the judge had misdefined "rape." Brattman was subsequently retried, and in 1982 found guilty of assault. He was given a six-month suspended sentence.
Now in Malden, he is president of NatureQuest, a foundation that publishes ISurvived and other Web sites and which, according to year after year of filings with the IRS, has no money coming in or going out.
ISurvived is mostly a compendium of Holocaust information built through links to hundreds of reputable Holocaust archives and Jewish education sites -- links that may help account for its strong ranking on search engines. The one section bearing Brattman's personal imprint is the "Holocaust Controversy Page," on which "we present `sensitive' and controversial issues with respect to the Holocaust as we filter certain conventional representations of the Holocaust."
For Brattman, the consuming controversy of recent years was an effort to honor the late American diplomat Hiram Bingham IV for his role in helping Jews escape Vichy France. Brattman considers Bingham unworthy, and launched a campaign to deny him a U.S. postage stamp and recognition at Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial in Israel.
First he attacked members of Bingham's family, whom he charged were using "distorted and fabricated evidence" to make their case. Then he trained his sights on Eric Saul, an established Holocaust curator and researcher, whose Visas for Life project documents how diplomats from many nations, Bingham among them, aided Jews fleeing Hitler.
Saul, 56, lives in Morgantown, W.Va. He says he sank his life savings of $350,000 into Visas for Life.
But Brattman brands him a profiteer: "His motto could have been: there is no business like the Holocaust business!"
Because of ISurvived, when you Google "Eric Saul," the top two hits identify him as a "Holocaust research imposter."
Next came Solly Ganor.
In 1992, Saul had reunited Ganor and other Dachau survivors in Israel with some of the Japanese-American veterans who had liberated them. It was a cathartic moment that led Ganor to write his memoir.
When Saul brought his Visas for Life exhibit to Jerusalem in 2004, Ganor wrote an article of praise which, he was told in an e-mail, incensed Brattman.
The message was signed "Avi," with no surname, but the title "assistant managing editor." It described a purported gathering at which Brattman reacted to the article as though a member of his family had died: "His sadness was most visible. Then, you could see in his eyes his raging indignation. He saw this as a betrayal."
The Ganor entry on ISurvived soon followed.
While Brattman won't be interviewed, questions e-mailed to him at ISurvived are answered promptly by the "First Assist Service Team (FAST)."
Q: Who is Avi? Does Avi have a last name?
A: All of us here have last names (sic!), be it Judith, Avi, Ilan, Eva, Miriam, Otto, Pete, etc., but only our Managing Editor, Mr. Brattman, and our chief webmaster Steve Grunfeld, are permitted to use their last names.
Q: Who is the "I" in "ISurvived"?
A: Questioning the first letter `I' in the name of our website is as meaningful as questioning Apple Computer Company of the names placed on their products such as the iMac or the iPod, etc.
Q: How is it that you are able to ensure that your site comes up among the first three or four hits on Google and Yahoo! when searching for "Solly Ganor," or "Eric Saul"?
A: That is something you need to ask Google, take a course or two in computer sciences, etc. We, for sure, have no intention of giving you free computer lessons on Google algorithms.
Brattman was asked about his criminal record in a separate e-mail. The reply: "As you have been advised, we no longer can assist you with your inquiries. Whatever you are working on is of no interest to us. You are wasting your time and ours in fishing for additional information. Best regards, First Assist Service Team (FAST)."
"It is Kafka," Karine Barzilai-Nahon, a professor at the University of Washington's Information School, says of Ganor's dilemma.
Barzilai-Nahon believes the search engines can no longer simply plead neutrality in cases like this. "The time has come to show more social responsibility," she says. If not, she warns, the state will step in.
Eddan Katz, executive director of Yale's Information Society Project, says search engines must perfect their algorithms to provide higher-quality results: "Google can try to make the world a better place by making dubious voices less heard than might otherwise be the case."
In May, Hiram Bingham was one of six former American diplomats honored by the Postal Service with a commemorative stamp. But in Israel, Yad Vashem declined to grant him "Righteous Among the Nations" status for saving the lives of Jews, despite what Eric Saul believes is the strength of his case.
Meanwhile, Saul, who used to show his Visas for Life exhibit a half-dozen times annually, hasn't had an offer in two years.
And Solly Ganor tries to fathom how it all came to this.
Brattman, Ganor says, "tells me I'm a Holocaust imposter. He defames the memory of my mother, who died in a concentration camp, of my brother, who was shot by the SS.
"There are so few survivors that are still around to tell the story and he's undermining the credibility of what we're saying.
"He's playing into the hands of the Holocaust deniers."
July 20, 2006
(Jonathan Tilove can be contacted at jonathan.tilove@newhouse.com.)
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