Israeli jet circles Shia gathering

[Aidoneus]

Israeli jet circles Shia gathering
Tuesday 02 March 2004

An Israeli reconnaissance plane circled over Beirut's southern suburbs when Hizb Allah leaders were addressing a mass Shia gathering.

Commemorating Ashura on Tuesday, crowd members confirmed that a plane illegally entered Lebanese airspace just west of Beirut at about 10:00 local time.

Briefly circling the capital's southern suburbs and Baabda, where Lebanon's president lives, the airspace violation failed to prevent Hizb Allah from addressing a crowd of more than 100,000.

Hizb Allah was the resistance group largely responsible for driving Israel from southern Lebanon after a 22- year occupation.

However, despite the withdrawal, Israel has flown regular sorties over southern Lebanon.

--snip--

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/149A3E80-18B2-4F15-B08A-038A713D3C1F.htm

[Resistance]

1. push push push

Gee that's real helpful, to deliberately scare/provoke a crowd of people who are already fearful of you.

Wonderful leadership.

[Gimel]

2. No fear

was in evidence.

:shrug:

[Aidoneus]

3. a friend of mine saw a bit of this as it happened

There was indeed fear, though Sayyid Nasrallah did not stop his speech to the crowd (she did add when passing this on to me that 100k sounds about right for an estimate, maybe low, so I don't think that leaves any grounds for questioning al-J's reporting here like there usually is). The people there are quite familiar of what Israeli jets do, but I guess you'd say it's "not that bad really". One of us could check al-Manar's online feed of this later if there was any reaction from the crowd if you still would contest it.

[mobuto]

5. What was your friend doing

at a Hizbollah rally?

[Aidoneus]

6. commemorating Ashura with the rest of them..

biggest day of the year in such parts, the family's been doing it since before there was any Hizbullah, they were in the neighborhood, there was a guy outside handing out free food, nothing else to do on a Tuesday morning, etc.. the usual reasons.

[Forkboy]

8. is he a terrorist?

just cutting to the chase for the benefit of those who don't have the guts to come out and actually say it. :D

Commemorating Ashura my ass ;-)

[drdon326]

9. This should be good

.

[Forkboy]

11. I was doing you a favor

next time have the guts to do so yourself.

[drdon326]

13. lol

i'm still reserving judgement over the answer.

[Aidoneus]

14. I don't accept reservations

walk-in only..

what are your concerns?

[Aidoneus]

10. no, just an ex

ran to the far other side of the earth just to get away from me.. or something like that. :) she's from a family of farmers, not bomb-makers. keeps in touch, passes on interesting gossip like this and music in a language I still can't understand too well. they're not Hizbullah members, if that's what mobuto & "dr"don are curious about. I think it was that guy with the free food that roped all of those people in..

am I allowed to hijack my own thread like this?

[Forkboy]

12. I'm sorry but I can't take the word of a misguided leftist

:)

[drdon326]

7. Uhhhhhh......good question

may he just *HAPPENED* to be there.

yeah...that sounds good.

[Aidoneus]

15. as for the other reason..

some of the other demonstrations on this day, there particularly or elsewhere in general, have the Matam with Qama or Zanjeem (swords and chains, respectively), which I know she finds disturbing. Following Khomeini's views on such matters, Hizbullah tends to look unfavourably upon these practices as part of Ashura festivals (I forget whether there is an official ruling forbidding them, or just an informal preference against).

I've never thought to explain a minor anecdote so thoroughly before.. I should bookmark this, to look back on in those periods when I think I'm being ignored again.

At the least, thankfully there were no bombs dropped here like there were in Khazamiyah, Karbala, and Quetta.. though it wouldn't be the first Ashura that Israelis fired on if it had.

[drdon326]

20. Really ?

"though it wouldn't be the first Ashura that Israelis fired on if it had."

i'm sure you got a link on that...i'll wait.


of course we all know about the Passover sedar murderous
suicide bombing but we wont go there.

[Aidoneus]

21. I am familiar with details of at least one, off hand

16th of October 1983 (10 Muharram, 1404AH), city of Nabatiyah in southern Lebanon.. date & location given, I'll allow you to research the matter yourself. I don't think you'd trust off hand anything I'd say, but I can furnish details as I know them upon request. Quite a response it provoked..

[drdon326]

22. I googled the info....nothing.

I'm sure you have a link on that historic event.........

because otherwise it might be viewed as a cheap shot with
no basis in reality.

[Aidoneus]

23. sigh.

You would be lost without me here to do your research.. :eyes:

My knowledge of the subject comes through books I have read, but there is more than sufficient resources for those capable of finding them (a tall order?). There are some alternate spellings for the terms, Ashoura/Ashura, Nabatiyah/Nabatiyeh/Nabatieh/etc.. Through a few search strings I was able to find hundreds of references. Give me a few minutes to sort through some and put together a collection for you.

[Aidoneus]

24. a collection of references, as requested..

a few selected from many returned in google searches; there are more if this is not enough from you, in addition to references I am more directly familiar with that I may quote from.

...On Oct. 16, 1983, the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh was bustling with celebrations of Ashura, the Shiite holiday marking the assassination of Imam Hussain at Karbala 13 centuries ago. Despite the Jewish state's subsequent claims that its units had orders not to interfere with the goings- on, an Israeli convoy proceeded to interrupt the procession so that its vehicles could pass through.
When the crowd of 50,000 worshippers became restless, then hostile, some of the Israelis opened fire. Two people were killed and about a dozen wounded. It was not the casualty toll that caused the ensuing explosions of vengeance, though: It was the timing of yet another humiliation on the very day when Shiites bemoan the original persecution of their faith...
http://www.shianews.com/hi/articles/islam/0000034.php

...Then, on October 16, 1983 during the Shiite Ashura festival in Nabitiyeh, Lebanon (marking the martyrdom of the Imam Hussein at Karbala thirteen centuries earlier), an Israeli military convoy provoked a violent reaction by insisting on traveling through the middle of a crowd of 50,000 Shiite worshippers. Two Shiites were killed and fifteen were wounded in the fracas...
http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/hizbullah.htm

...On October 16, 1983, more than 50,000 people were participating in Ashura commemorations in the town of Nabatiyeh when Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers rolled in, disrupting the ceremonies, and killing two persons and injuring 15 others. The disruption of the Ashura procession created immense resentment among the people who were already emotionally charged for the event...
http://www.muslimedia.com/archives/movement00/hizb-zb.htm

...On Oct. 16, 1983, an Israeli convoy tried to make its way through the village of Al-Nabatiya while the local Shi’ites were commemorating Ashura, the most sacred day on their calendar. The emotionally charged holiday recalls the martyrdom of the prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husain, and his courageous resistance against a far superior army. The Israeli troops clearly did not understand any of this, and started honking their horns for the locals to get out of their way. The locals threw rocks at them and tried to turn over some of their jeeps. The Israelis panicked and fired their guns. When the dust settled, two Shi’ites were dead and a lethal Shi’ite resistance had been born. “Nabatiya,” says AbuKhalil, now a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, “is the marking date of the beginning of the end."...
http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/cce/references/pme/First_Marine.pdf

...In October 1983, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, an Israeli military convoy desecrated the Ashura commemoration in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiya. Lebanese Shi'ite leader Mufti Mohammed Mahdi Shmas al-Din issued a fatwa (authoritative interpretation of religious responsibility), calling on all Muslims to initiate "total civil opposition" to the Israeli occupation, whose oppression was easily analogized by Lebanese Shi'ites with the tyrannical Ummayad ruler Yazid. The Nabatiya incident was a milestone in the Islamic resistance to Israel, politicizing the Shi'ites of Lebanon, inflaming their passion and setting off the resistance to the Israeli occupation...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FB19Ak02.html

...The last straw although was an incident in October 1983 at an Ashura gathering in a southern town called Nabatiyha. Here, while commemorating the death of Hussein at Kerbala, an estimated number of 50000-60000 Shiites were interrupted by an Israeli convoy who tried to make its way through the masses. The riots that erupted signed the start of an all-out war. It was blatant symbolism, and just as deadly...
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/320/324/324.2/hizballah/warn/invasion.html

...On that day, which happened to be the Shi'ite holy day of Ashura --the equivalent of Good Friday to a Shi'ite--an Israeli army convoy tried to drive through the center of the town of Nabatiya. Friedman recounts the event on pp. 179-181 of his memoir. The Shi'ites took offense at the interruption of their festival in the main square and some nervous Israeli troopers fired away with their machine guns and rifles. Two locals died and fifteen or more were wounded--this in the middle of the most sacred festival of sacrifice...
http://www.siri-us.com/backissues/2000/Bulletin--5-23%3B%20SLebanon.txt

[Resistance]

4. were you there?

[Gimel]

16. No. they claim glory

why should they be afraid if they "drove out" Israel, as they claim?

[Aidoneus]

17. they're still people..

who, for some obviously ridiculous reason, associate Israeli warplanes with death and destruction, and react accordingly. What could ever give them that idea is a mystery..

I tend to react badly to such jets over my head as well (well, same source for the jets but a different flag on them when I'm below them), and none of them have destroyed my neighborhood yet so as to directly produce the pavlovian response.

[Gimel]

18. That is the situation.

Nothing can be done about it.

[Aidoneus]

19. hm?

[Resistance]

25. face it

if you weren't there, you're only guessing that there was no fear in the crowd. And judging from what Aidoneus' friend has said, you're guess is very bad.