Poisonous Balloons
Someone please explain this to me. Israeli planes flew into Lebanese airspace, to Nabatiyeh, just South of Beirut, and dropped poisonous balloons hospitalizing 8 people??
I really hope UNIFIL kids had sobered up from the wine and wrote down notes.
If a Lebanese mosquito flew over Israeli we would had gotten at least a couple of bridges blown up, a few hundred people killed, and a few neighborhoods demolished, while the world looked the other way.
Curious Rampurple
Update: Zvi pointed out that they were balloons from a promotional campaign and not flown over by planes. Article in Haaretz. I couldn’t find anything about it in Jerusalem Post.
So now Rampurple is Confused.
Posted by Rampurple |
for once, we agree.
January 28th, 2007 | #
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/818324.html
January 28th, 2007 | #
Thank you for posting about this Rampurple! I just found a bit about this here: http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/01/8_injured_from.php
What the *bleep* is going on?!
January 28th, 2007 | #
As the Haaretz article states, the balloons were part of a promotional ad campaign by an Israeli newspaper called Ha’Ir (that’s the word written on the balloons; it means “The City”, so the “Hebrew markings” are nothing mysterious or evil).
The IAF does not take commissions from private companies to drop advertisements from the air lol.
The balloons were released *IN* *ISRAEL* and apparently *A FEW* of them drifted on the wind across the border. Unless the newspaper is trying to poison its Israeli customers, you can chalk this story up to another bout of hysteria on the part of certain Lebanese media outlets starving for a story that is more unifying for Lebanese people than sectarian violence. While I sympathize deeply with that goal, I really wish that Arab countries would learn to settle their internal differences without channelling their internal hostility toward Israel.
If anyone had any problems after seeing the balloons, chalk that up to panic attacks brought on by their own stress and by wild imaginations fed by decades of conspiracy theories.
By the way - what were Lebanese people doing inhaling the helium from random balloons, anyway? Sure, inhaling helium makes you talk like a duck, but what exactly were these people trying to accomplish? Or are they claiming that the balloons somehow chased them down, attacked them and forced them to breathe the helium? Inquiring minds want to know. Not.
rolls eyes*
January 28th, 2007 | #
It’s not funny. What if Hezbollah decides these “poison balloons” are a justification for breaking the cease-fire and starts bombarding Israel with chemical weapons launched from northern Lebanon? Perfect distraction for Hezbollah, right?
If Lebanese don’t want Hezb starting (or provoking) more wars, they had better debunk this report fast - even if they believe it is true! Waiting until the shooting starts will be too late.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Why don’t you guys, both Israelis and Lebs, try for a peace agreement. I have heard the Israelis say that if Lebanon wants peace, they will sign in a minute. I have heard the Lebanese say that they will be the last people on earth to sign a peace deal. This is not the position you want to be in. I guess if some people (I hope its only a very few) believe that the Israelis are now conducting warfare with helium party balloons, it is understandable why they insist on perpetual animosity.
It is amazing what people believe
January 28th, 2007 | #
What if Zvi had not posted the article in Haaretz? Thousands or more would have believed this innocent or not innocent fabrication.Thankyou Zvi. Good work.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Good Lord. What a ridiculous story. If Israel wanted to poison people in the South (which they do not), they wouldn’t do it this way.
Chemical warfare by Israel would look a lot like what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds, only worse. Until that happens, it’s safe to assume in the future that any more stories like this are not true.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Sham…in future.please check out your facts. What you posted regarding the green balloons was libellous incitement.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Sonia, this story was reported by Naharnet, which is weird because Naharnet is usually pretty reliable.
January 28th, 2007 | #
I didnt know you get poisoned by inhaling helium, if thats what was in the balloons.
I suppose the villagers freaked out and fainted seeing green balloong with hebrew writings lol .
January 28th, 2007 | #
Michael,
Naharnet refered to information from the NNA(National News Agency), but they should have included the Israeli version of the story.
“NNA had earlier said that the Lebanese army’s engineering unit headed to the area and destroyed the balloons by explosives”
Explosives to blow balloons ?? lool, this is stupid!
January 28th, 2007 | #
N: I agree.
People do not get poisoned by inhaling small amounts of helium. Helium is inert and is not breatheable, so if you were locked in a room full of 100% helium, you would smother for lack of oxygen. But helium is not toxic either.
Many, many people have inhaled helium because it makes your voice sound funny.
If anyone in Lebanon checked themselves into a hospital, their symptoms were either psychosomatic or due to panic attacks / nerves. While I sympathize with terrified Lebanese people who might faint or imagine that they were sick, common sense needs to prevail eventually.
**
The Lebanese army used EXPLOSIVES?!?!? To destroy BALLOONS? lmao what the hell? But I note that they destroyed the evidence, so I guess sane Lebanese will never be able to prove to crazy ones that these were harmless.
**
Michael, I need to correct you. Israel would *not* use chemical weapons against civilians in a genocidal rampage the way Saddam did against the Kurds. Upon hearing any such suggestion, the immediate connection in any Jewish person’s head is the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The response is a visceral revulsion that cannot be assuaged. We haven’t spent 60 years trying to prevent another Shoah from befalling Jews or anyone else, only to commit such crimes ourselves.
The Israeli leaders who dropped leaflets 24 hours ahead of many attacks and who avoided entering Christian towns in south Lebanon are not men who are psychologically capable of the kind of insanity that would be required to do such a thing, and Israel has never had leaders who would have been psychologically capable of such an action.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Hi, Ram.
JPost and Yedioth Achronoth didn’t run the story, as far as I can tell, but Maariv definitely did:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/535/938.html
Unfortunately, Maariv is Hebrew-only.
Apparently someone in Lebanon got confused and thought that “ha’ir” — the word is plainly visible on the balloons from the al Manar photo — was “hizaher” (caution, or careful). Probably this caused people to panic and start hallucinating symptoms… . Or maybe we simply have more acting. Remember the Hizballah lady who “discovered that her home had been destroyed” 3 different times in 3 different places during the war?
Anyway, apparently someone working for Hizballah doesn’t read Hebrew QUITE as well as he thinks he does, because trust me, it is very hard to mistake “hizaher” (careful) for “ha’ir” (the city), and the al-Manar photo in the article that Rampurple cited clearly shows that the word is ha’ir.
I take Solomon2’s point, and assume that from now on, the IDF will have to watch out for all kinds of toxic turds being sent downwind by Hizballah. *sighs*
January 28th, 2007 | #
Zvi,
I know Israelis would never do what Saddam did, and I agree with everything you said about it. I apologize for not being clear.
What I meant by that comment is that the Israelis are capable of infliciting massive damage, and if they DID want to use chemical warfare (and like I also said, they do not) they wouldn’t do it with a few party balloons.
This story was just obviously ridiculous to me on several levels at once. Fighter planes dropping party balloons? No. Fighter pleans drop bombs. If Israeli fighter planes are going to drop chemical weapons (which they won’t) they would drop chemical bombs, not balloons.
But Israelis do not, and would not, use chemical weapons.
January 28th, 2007 | #
Michael, hi. Thank you for the clarification. I agree 100%.
January 29th, 2007 | #
Well I actually live in Lebanon.
And its pure crap around here.
the people who live in Nabatiye and Tyre area as waiting any sign from isreal to assume that Isreali people are up to something bad and cruel and evil hahahaaha those are just insane and stupid people seriously what the heck Isreal has alot of powerful weapons. and Lebanese think they would choose “Ballons” to harm them? oh what the heck the next thing we know if that they’ll start a ballon war hahahaahaha seriously pathetic.
Cheers People.
January 29th, 2007 | #
Thanks for your comment. Nina. Good to know that there are rational people on both sides of the border!
January 29th, 2007 | #
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