No sirens for Nazareth

Nobody believed Nasrallah would attack an Arab town. Not even the Israeli defense ministry. A day after Nasrallah fired a rocket onto Nazareth, killing two children, it was revealed that the town’s sirens were never connected to Israel’s early warning system.

Until yesterday, Home Front Command officials believed that Nazareth would not be hit. Municipal officials said that was why the sirens were not connected to the early warning system operated by the command and the Defense Ministry. After yesterday's attack, it was agreed that the sirens will be connected as soon as possible. "They told us explicitly that we wouldn't be a target," said the city's security officer, Mamoun Satiti. The Home Front Command said that the city's warning system is being tested.

The bombing of Nazareth created mixed reactions among the Arab population. Many blamed both parties.

The residents did not know where to direct their anger. Fadel Sawalha, whose father was injured by yesterday's Katyusha strike, stood in his living room, facing the shattered windows. He was upset, but chose his words carefully.

"I'll tell you whom I blame," Sawalha said. "There are three people - [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Amir Peretz and Hassan Nasrallah. I blame Olmert and Peretz because they promised. For the first time, we have a prime minister and a defense minister who aren't generals, and they turn out to be the ones who go to war. And I blame Nasrallah too, because now that he has been weakened, he is firing indiscriminately. And he shouldn't have kidnapped soldiers, either."

The Taluzis alternated between expressing loyalty to Israel and defending Nasrallah. "There's no difference between Jewish and Arab blood," said a cousin. "Both sides have to stop firing. You want me to blame Nasrallah, but I won't. We're no better than they are, and if they're being killed, then so are we. I'm not mad at him."

Many of Safafa's residents are blue-collar workers who came to live there in 1948 after being driven out of their villages during the war. In effect, it is one or two steps up from a refugee camp, a neighborhood that was thrown up in haste. Yesterday, a visitor could peek in the windows and watch people switching between the Arab and Israeli television channels to find out about the situation.

"We have a problem," a neighbor explained. "We are citizens here ... and we think about the good of the country. On the other hand, we also have different national sentiments, because we belong to a different people, the one beyond the border, and the images affect us. We are waiting for both peoples to find a way to live in tranquility."

UPDATE

Ynetnews has a good number of articles on how the Israeli Home Front Command and the Israeli media have been dealing with the attacks on Arab towns.

The Home Front Command does not publish its announcements in Arabic, and the settlements themselves don’t qualify for government aid for being in the "line of fire."... At times of war the state deals only with the Jewish home front. Our Druze and Arab neighbors are left only to luck, and to pray for a miracle.

Another report carried interviews with Nazareth residents, who complained that they were never instructed to go to shelters. 

Kubati said he was at home when the Katyushas landed. “We heard a loud blast, and then another one, and I immediately understood these were Katyushas. Just two days ago Katyushas landed not far from here, and it was clear they could reach us too. Hizbullah fires without distinction, they don’t care whether we’re Arab or Jewish. For them the main goal is to cause damage, and today they did and caused a catastrophe.”

Kubati said that even after the rocket strikes, no one passed through the town telling residents to take shelter. “It doesn’t work here like in Haifa or any other Jewish town. No one tells us anything,” he reiterated.

Comments

[vdz]

A shameful discrimination.

Our news were stressing this point all over since yesterday. A good thing to put it on the table like these, when people's lives are in danger.

[anonymous]

To be fair, there have been problems with the sirens and warnings across Northern Israel. People have complained in more than just Nazereth that sirens didn't sound or that they sounded after the missiles have arrived in many cities including Haifa and surrounding towns.

I would not always expect there to be adequate warning. Israel said they would TRY to give the citizens 60 seconds of warning which is not very much to begin with. Israel had been having some electric power troubles too and warning systems appeared to be spotty.

The headline implies an intentional lack of warning for Nazareth and I don't believe that is the case.

[just me]

There is one key sentence to the whole post:

"Nobody believed Nasrallah would attack an Arab town"

Interpret that any way you wish.

[Ben]

I am a supporter of Israel, but I believe the Israel government should apologize and correct the situation. Even good governments do the wrong thing at times. Perhaps it is true, no one expected the attack, but a nation has a duty to protect ALL its citizens, and now we know that Hezbollah is insane, they will shoot at anyone for any reason. Israel should treat its Arab citizens as if they were Jewish.

Ben

[Dave]

Air raid sirens are all bought and placed by municipalities not by the Israeli government. So the people to blame are the city officials who probably thought no arabs would bomb a predominately arab town.

[johny]

to continue dave,

The mayor and most of the municipality commitee members are arabs. The responsability of thelack of air-raid sirens are on them.

[Dave]

As far as the update is concerned, you left out the fact that the person making the (false)allegation is the director of the ironically named "Peace Now" which is a leftist anti-israel organization similar to the International Solidarity Movement"

[Jonathan]

The problem is not the sirens, which work is most Arab municipalities, and not Nasrallah, which doesn't differ blood from blood (he also sent rockets to Majdal Krum and other Arab Municipalities) the problem is that Nasrallah wishes to kill children, whether they are jews, muslims or christians doesn't matter.

The other problem the Arab municipalities in israel have is that they lack in-house bombshelters, built in most Israeli houses. This is due to a cultural difference where they build without a building permit, and therefore are not subject to construction laws.

But you must understand that israel is shocked from every bomb, including the horrible one in Nazerath that killed two young children.

and Dave, "Peace Now" is not anti-israel. Yariv, the writer, which is a good friend of mine, is one of the most important people nowadays. Peace Now was established during the Lebanon war (1982) and called for the withdrawl since they know that occupation is bad, and war gives no good results.

[someone]

The one who went to attack is not Lebanon.
If two of your soldiers were kidnapped, then dont go to war ,there is UN and there is negotiations.
Negotiate with the lebanese government ,if you still respect it ,dont drop bomb on the entire country.

If you want to apply the UN resolution 1559 ,then let the UN apply it, dont take your own responsibility.let the UN atack Lebanon ,or let UN put sanctiones on Lebanon government ,like it did with North Korea.

This is so called international law .

If you dont respect it then you are an outlaw.

if you want to apply 1559 , then apply the UN resolution that says "give back occupied land to the lebaneses".

[Dave]

Someone,

The Lebanese must solve this problem themselves. But since HA was too strong militarily, it was impossible without another civil war that would have killed tens of thousands of people.

On the other hand, Israel is now doing the job for the Lebanese. While this is causing some severe destruction and loss of life, it is only a small fraction of the cost another civil war would have brought.

The anger at Israel by the Lebanese is completely understandable. Who wouldn’t be upset at anyone bombing their country?

However, once you come to the conclusion that HA must be disarmed (either from the Israeli point of view that having HA on their border constitutes an existential threat because of Iranian nukes or from a Lebanese perspective that they will never be free and peaceful until HA is gone), civil war or Israel bombing them are the only real alternatives. Civil war is clearly the worse option by far.
Dave | 07.

[someone]

Dave,

There is no UN resolution that allow the jews to remove the lebanese millitants in the south fo Lebanon, BY THEMSELVES.

Yes,1559 says that The millitants should be desarmed,and this is the responsibility of The lebanese government.

The party is a part of lebanese government ,and not a terrorist party.

The lebaneses dont want "Others" to do the job for them like you said , do they have the right ? who gave them the right ?

Only UN can help them doing that , by UN forces , if UN forces bombarded Lebanon ,then we can say ,that UN is applying 1559 by force , and UN is helping the lebanese government to avoid civil war,this could be understood,and i am sure UN forces will avoid killing civilians and destroyoing their houses,and destroying evrything in Lebanon.

The other thing is that the lebanese government desolve itself ,and then they are not responsible of the party acts in the south , this is a sign that the governmemt cant be blamed for what the party is doing , and then avoid war on lebanese civilians and their country,in this case ,lebanese call UN for help ,and not the jews.

Now what we are seeing ,is that jews wants to apply 1559 instead of the UN ,or that UN gave them the order to apply it, in this case we can say that UN is controled by jews.

That was the case with Iraq, the jews went on to remove the regime there ,eventhough other countries in UN said it is illegal,who cares, UN is a jewish constiution and other nations are just followers.

[Igal]

Sirens were removed from most of arabs cities before several years. Why? Because people that live in this cities were upset when twice in year sirens were alarmed in memory of soldjers that failed and in memory of jeews that were killed in Holocost. This sirens were not pleasent for this people. They were warned that this sirens are in use when rockets fired to Israel. But they had believed that arabs rockets will not kill arabs children..

[someone]

Holocost? You mean the killing of palestinians in Gaza ?

I dont see other holocosts.

"The city of Nazareth asked to be disconnected from the system of air raid sirens because it interfered with them on remembrance days for IDF martyrs and on Holocaust Day."

[David]

This is another lie. Nazareth has sirens. It was switched off by the Arab "fifth column "in Israel because the sirens go on during "memorial day" for the Israel fallen in the wars. This is the price for obtuse lack of respect. By the way "memorial day" sirens go on for Druze Moslems and Bedouins fallen serving in the Israeli army.

For you lies are the daily bread join Mohmmed Al SAKAF the information Minister of Saddam. ( we are winning!)

Today, Nasrallah hit the Arab village of Mrar. There are several dead and 30 injured. Bravo to your Arch - Murderer

[Idris]

CNN's Anderson Cooper Exposes Hezbollah's Media Manipulations
Posted by Rich Noyes on July 25, 2006 - 17:54.
On Monday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualities caused by Israeli bombs.

But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper — to his credit — exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters. It’s quite a contrast from the much more accommodating approach taken by his colleague, Nic Robertson, in a report that aired on a variety of CNN programs (including AC360) back on July 18, a report that Robertson himself has now conceded was put together under Hezbollah's control.

Unlike Robertson, Cooper was explicit about how Hezbollah’s operatives had set all of the rules: “Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings,” he explained. He countered Hezbollah claims that Israel targets civilians by pointing out that the group based itself in civilian areas and that Israel's air force drops leaflets warning of attacks.

Cooper exposed for CNN viewers that the sight of speeding ambulances, sirens blaring, was just a phony play staged by Hezbollah: “One by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians....These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

CNN showed cameramen from other news organizations dutifully photographing the ambulances as they went by.

Cooper had left Lebanon and was stationed in Haifa, Israel for Monday’s broadcast. His report on his trip “Inside Hezbollah” appeared at about 10:40pm EDT Monday (6:40am Tuesday, local time), the first hour of his two-hour program.

“We'd come to get a look at the damage and had hoped to talk with a Hezbollah representative. Instead, we found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah. Young men on motor scooters followed our every movement. They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings. Once, when they thought we'd videotaped them, they asked us to erase the tape. These men are called al-Shabab, Hezbollah volunteers who are the organization's eyes and ears.”

Gesturing to racks of music CDs in a building that had lost at least one of its walls, Cooper remarked, “You see their CDs on the wall still.”

He continued: “Hezbollah representatives are with us now but don't want to be photographed. They'll point to something like that and they'll say, ‘Well, look, this is a store.’ The civilians lived in this building. This is a residential complex.

“And while that may be true, what the Israelis will say is that Hezbollah has their offices, their leadership has offices and bunkers even in residential neighborhoods. And if you're trying to knock out the Hezbollah leadership with air strikes, it's very difficult to do that without killing civilians.

“As bad as this damage is, it certainly could have been much worse in terms of civilian casualties. Before they started heavily bombing this area, Israeli warplanes did drop leaflets in this area, telling people to get out. The civilian death toll, though, has angered many Lebanese. Even those who do not support Hezbollah are outraged by the pictures they've seen on television of civilian casualties.”

As the video showed a group reporters and photographers interviewing a single woman on a blanket, Cooper explained, “Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them — and questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.

“After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.

“This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That's the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.

“These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

Cooper concluded: “Hezbollah may not be terribly subtle about spinning a story, but it is telling perhaps that they try. Even after all this bombing, Hezbollah is still organized enough to have a public relations strategy, still in control enough to try and get its message out.”

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