Olmert: Israel's "painful response will not be confined to Hassan's gang of criminals".

Events at the UN grind on. Although the facts on the ground have changed forever, which accounts for the slowness of movement at the UN, where the USraelis are determined to keep the new reality out of all official textbooks... and the wording of any UN Resolutions.

The conflict in Lebanon is inspiring a potent kind of warfare, which could have a profound impact throughout the Middle East. Previously Israel could capture Beirut in seven days; now it has struggled for four weeks to control small villages right on its own border.

Hizbullah has done a lot better than the conventional forces of all the Arab states that have fought against Israel since 1948. It has won a stunning propaganda victory and shattered Israel's deterrence posture.

This is the new reality that the USraelis now seek to obscure. The whole argument currently raging at the UN is about how the USraelis can save face after a disastrous intervention in Lebanon.

There is a Greek proverb which says "you don't go to hell to light a cigarette".

But that, indeed, is where the USraelis went. The cost of their miscalculation in terms of human lives and infrastructure and the sheer amount of loathing they have stirred against themselves in the Muslim world is there for all to see.

They are desperately hoping that they can write this out of the records by securing a Resolution that hides this fact.

The USRaelis are already desperately trying to talk up the influence their ill-fated military intervention has had on events on the ground.

The Israeli Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, said that if there was a ceasefire, "we'll see the military operation as having created the diplomatic climate and a new situation". But if the efforts failed, he added, Israel would use "all of the tools" to win the war.

It's garbage, of course, but it's a tune they'll keep singing in the vain hope that the world will forget just what happened here.

And as the USraelis fume over their lack of success in southern Lebanon, their threats become ever more menacing and ever more foul of international law.

Yesterday's air-dropped Israeli document ordered Shia MuslimsinBeirut's Hay al-Selloum, Bourj al-Barajneh and Shiyah districts to abandon their homes "immediately". In other words, the Israeli army wishes to "cleanse" every civilian out of the 12 square miles between Beirut airport and the old Christian civil war frontline at Galerie Semaan. This malicious document ends with a sinister threat - which breaks all the relevant rules of the Geneva Conventions - that "each expansion of Hizbollah terrorist operations will lead to a harsh and powerful response and its painful response will not be confined to Hassan's gang of criminals".

"Its painful response will not be confined to Hassan's gang of criminals"?

Here we have the most blatant threat yet that Israel INTENDS to harm civilians. Is there any other possible reading of that statement?

This is coupled with an Israeli request to the US:

Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions.

It appears that the USraelis are becoming desperate, going to any length in order to write their loss out of the history books, even threatening to target civilians as away of forcing the Security Council to give them the exit they require.

Olmert was always out of his depth. Had Bush a modicum of intelligence he would have recognised the whole operation as destined to fail, and have rescued Olmert from his inevitable failure by demanding a ceasefire before we got to this seedy, shameful point.

But he didn't. And here we are. Israel now threatens to target civilians.

The damage done to her reputation is now irreparable. Whether or not Israel succeeds in getting the resolution that paints her loss out of history, I - and many others - will never forget that this shameful threat was made.

I said weeks ago that Bush should have intervened to save Olmert from himself. But to be honest, even I never envisaged that Olmert would trap himself into a corner so tight that he would have to issue this kind of threat.

Shameful. That's the only word. Shameful.

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Tags: Olmert, Bush, Blair, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Hizbullah, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, UN resolution,