Human Rights Watch Report Condemns Indescriminant Israeli Attacks Against Lebanese Civilians
While tensions begin to mount between Syria and Israel after an Israeli jet violated Syrian airspace during a recent sortie and allegedly dropped live ammunition within the country’s borders – the Israelis would not comment on the incident claiming that they “do not discuss military operations” – Human Rights Watch has released a damning report regarding last year’s conflict in Lebanon entitled - Israeli Indiscriminate Attacks Killed Most Civilians - No Evidence of Widespread Hezbollah ‘Shielding’.
From The Globe & Mail…
“In its harshest condemnation of Israel since last summer’s war, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from “indiscriminate Israeli air strikes,” according to a report to be released Thursday.
In a statement issued before the report’s release, the human rights organization said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians as shields. Israel has said it attacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns.
More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. They are still being held.
Israeli warplanes targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut Airport, and heavily damaged a neighbourhood in Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hezbollah centers in villages near the border. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 civilians. In the fighting, 40 Israeli soldiers were killed.
Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in the statement: “Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians.”
He added, “Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev rejected the report’s findings.”
There is also another matter to consider – Israel’s use of cluster bombs, dropped throughout Southern Lebanon in the late stages of the conflict in hopes of deterring people from returning to the region (though Israel denies that claim). The United Nations estimated in late 2006 that Southern Lebanon was home to some 1 million unexploded bomblets, and that since August of 2006, 3 people a day are either wounded or killed by them. The region is home to some 650,000 people, which means that they are actually outnumbered by unexploded bomblets.
In October of 2006, the Times (UK) referenced a Haaretz article in which an anonymous source within the Israeli military said…
“What we did was insane and monstrous; we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” Haaretz reported a head of a military rocket unit in Lebanon as saying in its Sept. 12 edition.”
Of course, when it comes to the actions of the Israelis, we are more than willing to overlook them. Were the same thing to be done by, for example, Syria, it would be universally condemned without question. That is not to say that such actions should not be unviversally condemned, just that when it comes to Israel, they tend not to be.
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September 7th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
from The Guardian:
Cluster bombs were first used by the Germans in the second world war but have become a standard weapon for many countries, including Britain, France and Italy.
The most popular delivery device, the American-made M26 rocket, scatters 644 bomblets over 20,000 square metres. Under test conditions up to 23% of bomblets from the M26 failed to explode on impact. The United States keeps 370,000 such rockets in stock.
From Me:
So that’s about 150 new land mines, which is what they then become, showered down on your town. Only Belgium has banned cluster bombs. A Flickr contact of mine posted a photo from a protest against Raytheon, a maker of cluster bombs. The group scattered some prop cluster bomblets on the ground and marked off the area with warning signs. His picture shows a toddler who had wandered into the area and was reaching for one of the dummy bomblets.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davemitchell/279352521/in/set-72157594279675940/
September 7th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
According to our PM Steven Harper, Israeli actions were a “measured and appropriate response”.
[quote]More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. They are still being held.
Israeli warplanes targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut Airport, and heavily damaged a neighbourhood in Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hezbollah centers in villages near the border. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 civilians. In the fighting, 40 Israeli soldiers were killed.[/quote]
I’d hate to see what he considers an overreaction.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Damned Jews, eh?
But I beg to differ, with this:
I think the reverse is true. How much coverage did the recent Sderot attacks attack by this site? The conventional media?
I think that until “both sides” cease indiscriminate, terror motivated attacks, then our haughty notions of “appropriateness” need to be held in check. Of course, the rub lies in who one believes to be the instigator here. Perhaps it’s time to move on? Arafat had that chance, and he doomed the Palestinians in the process.
I assure you that if someone chucked a bomb in my backyard, my reaction would be less than appropriate.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Here is a topical piece by Howard Zinn on the moral equivalency of aerial bombardments and suicide bombing:
ZNet | Anti War
On Terror
Letter to the New York Times
by Howard Zinn; NYT; August 21, 2007
To the Editor:
Samantha Power has done extraordinary work in chronicling the genocides of our time, and in exposing how the Western powers were complicit by their inaction.
However, in her review of four books on terrorism, especially Talal Asad’s “On Suicide Bombing” (July 29), she claims a moral distinction between “inadvertent” killing of civilians in bombings and “deliberate” targeting of civilians in suicide attacks. Her position is not only illogical, but (against her intention, I believe) makes it easier to justify such bombings.
She believes that “there is a moral difference between setting out to destroy as many civilians as possible and killing civilians unintentionally and reluctantly in pursuit of a military objective.” Of course, there’s a difference, but is there a “moral” difference? That is, can you say one action is more reprehensible than the other?
In countless news briefings, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, responding to reporters’ questions about civilian deaths in bombing, would say those deaths were “unintentional” or “inadvertent” or “accidental,” as if that disposed of the problem. In the Vietnam War, the massive deaths of civilians by bombing were justified in the same way by Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and various generals.
These words are misleading because they assume an action is either “deliberate” or “unintentional.” There is something in between, for which the word is “inevitable.” If you engage in an action, like aerial bombing, in which you cannot possibly distinguish between combatants and civilians (as a former Air Force bombardier, I will attest to that), the deaths of civilians are inevitable, even if not “intentional.” Does that difference exonerate you morally?
The terrorism of the suicide bomber and the terrorism of aerial bombardment are indeed morally equivalent. To say otherwise (as either side might) is to give one moral superiority over the other, and thus serve to perpetuate the horrors of our time.
Howard Zinn
September 7th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
tcollins,
it ain’t about moral equivalency. In wartime, such notions are…pedantic at best. In the second world war, we bombed the Germans into rubble.
What I’m suggesting is that if the PA would simply move on (as, let’s say for argument, Isreal has with its settlement in Gaza), things would make a dramatic turn for the better. For both Palestinians and Jews. I don’t believe they want piece, let alon what to do with it were it presented to them (as it was to Arafat not too long ago).
BTW, it isn’t a piece by the the NYT, it’s a letter to their editor. An opinion. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more. Just like mine. Sure, Zinn’s written a few more books than I, but then again, I’m not an anarchist.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
[quote comment="25587"]Damned Jews, eh?[/quote]
This isn’t about religion for me, it’s about a state acting against the good of its own people and those of another state. Far too often the anti-semitism card is played by those who wish to prevent any real debate of this issue.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Boreal,
Response appreciated but my comment actually wasn’t meant as a response to your posting. I think we were writing at the same time. I also did not mean to imply Zinn’s letter was a Times article. I suppose I was lazy with the use of the word “peice”. I meant piece of writing- The fact that it is a letter is stated in the title .
It is more than an opinion. It is a well formed and reasoned argument by an authoritative source but I’m not really interested in debating every possible point of disagreement, semantic or otherwise.
I agree that there are definitely elements in the leadership of both sides that don’t genuinely want peace. However, you need to make clear what your mean by move on. The Israelis have not effectively moved on in the matter of Gaza. Even if they had genuinely ceased occupation and control of movement and resources after pulling out settlements, the most essential problems would remain. The Palestinians cannot move on until the return of refugees is settled and the occupation is over. The inept or sinister behavior of Arafat or any other leader does not forfeit the Palestinian right to Self-Determination. The same goes for whether or not they know what to do with peace. What the Palestinians do with their state is not a precondition for fulfilling the right to have one.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
[quote comment="25589"].. In the second world war, we bombed the Germans into rubble.[/quote]
Indeed we did. Bomber Command also intentionally target German civilian populations, not just military & industrial targets. A recent attempt by a WW2 museum to actually display the records pertaining to the bombing campaign against Germany was so heavily protested by veteran’s groups that it was pulled.
Good eggs, one and all.
September 8th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Well said, Boreal.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
“Far too often the anti-semitism card is played by those who wish to prevent any real debate of this issue.”
i recently looked up the word semitism in the dictionary and found that it refers to many the peoples of western Asia, not just the Jews. so, if you critisize ANYONE in western Asia…then you are prone to being labelled an anti-semite…. AAAW shit.