[red rocket]

Israel, Not Hizbullah, is Putting Civilians in Danger on Both Sides of the Border

War of Media Deception

By JONATHAN COOK in Nazareth
Counterpunch
August 3, 2006

Here are some interesting points raised this week by a leading commentator and published in a respected daily newspaper: "The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert embeds his soldiers in Israeli communities, next to schools, beside hospitals, close to welfare centres, ensuring that any Israeli target is also a civilian target. This is the practice the UN's Jan Egeland had in mind when he lambasted Israel's 'cowardly blending ... among women and children'. It may be cowardly, but in the new warfare it also makes macabre sense. For this is a propaganda war as much as a shooting one, and in such a conflict to lose civilians on your own side represents a kind of victory."

You probably did not read far before realising that I had switched "Israel" for "Hizbullah" and "Ehud Olmert" for "Hassan Nasrallah". The paragraph was taken from an opinion piece by Jonathan Freedland published in Britain's Guardian newspaper on 2 August. My attempt at deception was futile because no one seems to seriously believe that criticisms of the kind expressed above can be levelled against Israel.

Freedland, like most commentators in our media, assumes that Hizbullah is using the Lebanese population as "human shields", hiding its fighters, arsenals and rocket launchers inside civilian areas. "Cowardly" behaviour rather than the nature of Israel's air strikes, in his view, explains the spiralling death toll among Lebanese civilians. This perception of Hizbullah's tactics grows more common by the day, even though it flies in the face of the research of independent observers in Lebanon such as Human Rights Watch.

Explaining the findings of its latest report, HRW's executive director, Kenneth Roth, blames Israel for targeting civilians indiscriminately in Lebanon. "The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians. Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hezbollah [sic] fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare."

HRW has analysed the casualty figures from two dozen Israeli air strikes and found that more than 40 per cent of the dead are children: 63 out of 153 fatalities. Conservatively, HRW puts the civilian death toll so far at over 500. Lebanese hospital records suggest the figure is now well over 750, with potentially many more bodies yet to be excavated from the rubble of buildings obliterated by Israeli attacks.

Giving the lie to the "human shields" theory, HRW says its researchers "found numerous cases in which the IDF [Israeli army] launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians."

In fact, of the 24 incidents they document, HRW researchers could find no evidence that Hizbullah was operating in or near the areas that were attacked by the Israeli air force. Roth states: "The image that Israel has promoted of such [human] shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong. In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around."

The impression that Hizbullah is using civilians as human shields has been reinforced, according to HRW, by official Israeli statements that have "blurred the distinction between civilians and combatants, arguing that only people associated with Hezbollah remain in southern Lebanon, so all are legitimate targets of attack."

Freedland makes a similar point. Echoing comments by the UN's Jan Egeland, he says Hizbullah fighters are "cowardly blending" with Lebanon's civilian population. It is difficult to know what to make of this observation. If Freedland means that Hizbullah fighters come from Lebanese towns and villages and have families living there whom they visit and live among, he is right. But exactly the same can be said of Israel and its soldiers, who return from the battlefront (in this case inside Lebanon, as they are now an invading army) to live with parents or spouses in Israeli communities. Armed and uniformed soldiers can be seen all over Israel, sitting in trains, queuing in banks, waiting with civilians at bus stops. Does that mean they are "cowardly blending' with Israel's civilian population?

Egeland and Freedland's criticism seems to amount to little more than blaming Hizbullah fighters for not standing in open fields waiting to be picked off by Israeli tanks and war planes. That, presumably, would be brave. But in reality no army fights in this way, and Hizbullah can hardly be criticised for using the only strategic defences it has: its underground bunkers and the crumbling fortifications of Lebanese villages ruined by Israeli pounding. An army defending itself from invasion has to make the most of whatever protection it can find -- as long as it does not intentionally put civilians at risk. But HRW's research shows convincingly that Hizbullah is not doing this.

So if Israeli officials have been deceiving us about what has been occurring inside Lebanon, have they also been misleading us about Hizbullah's rocket attacks on Israel? Should we take at face value government and army statements that Hizbullah's strikes into Israel are targeting civilians indiscriminately, or do they need more serious investigation?

Although we should not romanticise Hizbullah, equally we should not be quick to demonise it either -- unless there is convincing evidence suggesting it has been firing on civilian targets. The problem is that Israel has been abusing very successfully its military censorship rules governing both its domestic media and visiting foreign journalists to prevent meaningful discussion of what Hizbullah has been trying to hit inside Israel.

I live in northern Israel in the Arab city of Nazareth. A week into the war we were hit by Hizbullah rockets that killed two young brothers. The attack, it was widely claimed, was proof either that Hizbullah was indiscriminately targeting civilians (so indiscriminately, the argument went, that it was hitting fellow Arabs) or that the Shiite militia was so committed to a fanatical war against the Judeo-Christian world that it was happy to kill Nazareth's Christian Arabs too. The latter claim could be easily dismissed: it depended both on a "clash of civilisations" philosophy not shared by Hizbullah and on the mistaken assumption that Nazareth is a Christian city, when in fact, as is well-known to Hizbullah, Nazareth has a convincing Muslim majority.

But to anyone living in Nazareth, it was clear the rocket attack on the city was not indiscriminate either. It was a mistake -- something Nasrallah quickly confirmed in one of his televised speeches. The real target of the strike was known to Nazarenes: close by the city are a military weapons factory and a large military camp. Hizbullah knows the locations of these military targets because this year, as was widely reported in the Israeli media at the time, it managed to fly an unmanned drone over the Galilee photographing the area in detail -- employing the same spying techniques used for many years by Israel against Lebanon.

One of Hizbullah's first rocket attacks after the outbreak of hostilities -- after Israel went on the bombing offensive by blitzing targets across Lebanon -- was on a kibbutz overlooking the border with Lebanon. Some foreign correspondents noted at the time (though given Israel's press censorship laws I cannot confirm) that the rocket strike targeted a top-secret military traffic control centre built into the Galilee's hills.

There are hundreds of similar military installations next to or inside Israel's northern communities. Some distance from Nazareth, for example, Israel has built a large weapons factory virtually on top of an Arab town -- so close to it, in fact, that the factory's perimeter fence is only a few metres from the main building of the local junior school. There have been reports of rockets landing close to that Arab community.

How these kind of attacks are being unfairly presented in the Israeli and foreign media was highlighted recently when it was widely reported that a Hizbullah rocket had landed "near a hospital" in a named Israeli city, not the first time that such a claim has been made over the past few weeks. I cannot name the city, again because of Israel's press censorship laws and because I also want to point out that very "near" that hospital is an army camp. The media suggested that Hizbullah was trying to hit the hospital, but it is also more than possible it was trying to strike -- and may have struck -- the army camp.

Israel's military censorship laws are therefore allowing officials to misrepresent, unchallenged, any attack by Hizbullah as an indiscriminate strike against civilian targets.

Audiences ought to be alerted to this danger by their media. Any reports touching on "security matters" are supposed to be submitted to the country's military censor, but few media are pointing this out in their reporting. Most justify this deception to themselves on the grounds that in practice they never run their reports by the censor as it would delay publication.

Instead, they avoid problems with the military censor either by self-censoring their reporting on security issues or by relying on what has already been published in the Israeli media on the assumption that in these ways they are unlikely to contravene the rules.

An email memo, written by a senior BBC editor and leaked more than a week ago, discusses the growing restrictions being placed on the organisation's reporters in Israel. It hints at some of the problems noted above, observing that "the more general we are, the free-er hand we have; more specific and it becomes increasingly tricky." The editor says the channel will notify viewers of these restrictions in "the narrative of the story". "The teams on the ground will make clear what they can and cannot say -- and if necessary make clear that we're operating under reporting restrictions." In practice, however, BBC correspondents, like most of their media colleagues, rarely alert us to the fact they are operating under censorship, and self-censorship, or that they cannot give us the full picture of what is happening.

Because of this, commentators like Freedland are drawing conclusions that cannot be sustained by the available evidence. He notes in his article that "this is a propaganda war as much as a shooting one". He is right, but does not seem to know who is really winning the propaganda offensive.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0269.htm

I find this interesting. If it is true that the Israelis are placing their army camps next to their hospitals, and their weapons factories next to their schools, despite the fact that this pretty much ensures that their civilians will be hit by accident if not on purpose, it seems to me that Israel does not care all that much for even their own civilians, excepting their usability as propaganda items. That said, the way that military and civilian life are interwoven in Israeli society, perhaps there really isn't enough of a difference between Israeli civilian and soldier to justify a reasonable distance between civilian and military structures. Nor between terrorists and soldiers, if you philosophise about it from the collateral damagees' point of view.

[Y3a]

I guess the kidnapping had nothing to do with it? how about the continual missles raining down on Israeli lands?

[Monique]

I agree with Y3a, blame the victims; if hezbollah did not exist Israel would have never invaded Lebanon. After a while you get tired of suicide bombers.

[Saad]

If Israel was trying to stop the bombing, why would it launch an air campaign? It's destroying Lebanon's infrastructure, not preventing attacks. Hamas has actually stepped up missile attacks since Israel started its campaign.

[Y3a]

So, Saad, what would YOU SUGGEST as a way to stop the Hez from attacking Israel? Talk? A Treaty? Give them Land and money? What sort of appeasment would YOU use?

If the lebanese people were smart they NEVER would have allowed the Hez to BE IN LEBANON! Seems they are getting what they deserve!

[Saad]

Help fund the Lebanese military. Share intelligence with the government. Targeted assassonations.

[Saad]

I certainly wouldn't use airstrilkes the way the Israelis are. The Lebanese aren't going to abandon or turn on Hezbolla during a war, even if Hezbolla instigated the war. The only thing the attacks will accomplish is the fall of the democratic government in Lebanon.

[Y3a]

While the Lebanese are occupied by and partially lead by Hezbollah terrorists they shold be treated the same. This is their punishment for their stupidity in allowing the Hez to be there.

[Saad]

It's not stupidity. The government is genuinely to weak to confront Hezbolla. That's why there are Hexbolla ministers on the cabinet. Hezbolla is bad for development.

Since when will collective punishment an effective deterrent? There are more rocket attacks on Israel today than before the conflict began. Hezbolla is also receiving more rocket shipments from Iran through Syria.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Saad

The Lebanese aren't going to abandon or turn on Hezbolla during a war, even if Hezbolla instigated the war.

A government which refuses to put down threats to its own sovereignty does not deserve to stay in power. If the Lebanese government will not put down Hezbollah, then they have little if any right to complain when Hezbollah's targets defend themselves.

[Saad]

What kind of government will replace the one in power now? Definitely not a democratic, business-friendly one. Probably a coalition of Islamic parties headed by Hezbolla. That won't make Israel any more secure (less secure, since Hezbolla will have the power of the Lebanese army behind it).

[Athens]

Originally Posted by red rocket

http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0269.htm

I find this interesting. If it is true that the Israelis are placing their army camps next to their hospitals, and their weapons factories next to their schools, despite the fact that this pretty much ensures that their civilians will be hit by accident if not on purpose, it seems to me that Israel does not care all that much for even their own civilians, excepting their usability as propaganda items. That said, the way that military and civilian life are interwoven in Israeli society, perhaps there really isn't enough of a difference between Israeli civilian and soldier to justify a reasonable distance between civilian and military structures. Nor between terrorists and soldiers, if you philosophise about it from the collateral damagees' point of view.

I think all countries are guilty of this. HMCS Naden, a Canadian Navel base in Victoria its very close to schools and hospitals. It wouldn’t take much of a misfire for a missile targeted at the base to hit residential buildings or schools. The Army reserves in Vancouver, and New Westminster and the UBC lands are all in the middle of residential areas. I think the only bases that are clear of cities are the air force bases

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Y3a

So, Saad, what would YOU SUGGEST as a way to stop the Hez from attacking Israel? Talk? A Treaty? Give them Land and money? What sort of appeasment would YOU use?

If the lebanese people were smart they NEVER would have allowed the Hez to BE IN LEBANON! Seems they are getting what they deserve!

If the US gave Lebanon the same amount of money it gives Israel, and provided access to the same kind of military equiptment it provides Israel, the government in Lebanon would have no problem dealing with Hez.

[Saad]

Originally Posted by Athens

I think all countries are guilty of this. HMCS Naden, a Canadian Navel base in Victoria its very close to schools and hospitals. It wouldn’t take much of a misfire for a missile targeted at the base to hit residential buildings or schools. The Army reserves in Vancouver, and New Westminster and the UBC lands are all in the middle of residential areas. I think the only bases that are clear of cities are the air force bases

Even precision weapons have a big footprint. If the federal building in Nashville is destoryed, shrapnel will damage or destroy neighboring buildings, and the fire will be even more damaging.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Athens

If the US gave Lebanon the same amount of money it gives Israel, and provided access to the same kind of military equiptment it provides Israel, the government in Lebanon would have no problem dealing with Hez.

Yeah sure they would, just like when the Palestinians received weapons from Israel ! The Palestinians had a major police force and they refused to disarm the terrorists, instead they often used the same weapons that they had gotten from Israel against Israel.

Lebanon didn't disarm Hezbollah because it had no desire to do so. Their sissy leader was on tv crying. They play a two faced game, and their lame excuses are just that, excuses. Why do many Arab leaders act like children ?

[Saad]

Lebanon didn't disarm Hezbolla because it wasn't strong enough to basically invade the south.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

So every time Lebanon wants some more military hardware, or wants some more quick cash- just invite terrorist groups in, do nothing about them while they attack Israel, and then hold your hand out for a check. Brilliant!

[Saad]

As opposed to what? Do nothing and ask for nothing? Its military is delivering humanitarian assistance to areas where it won't be attacked by Israel or Lebanon. Lebanon isn't strong enough to take over Southern Lebanon, It's only been a year since a truly democratic government gained control in Lebanon.

I think the major issue is that Israel is not more secure now that Lebanon is under attack. Instead of having the country turn against Hezbolla, it made it more popular on the street, and prompted Iran to give the organization more weapons and more money.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Saad

Lebanon didn't disarm Hezbolla because it wasn't strong enough to basically invade the south.

Bull, why is Lebanon all of a sudden eager to send it's troops to the south now, and Lebanon says it doesn't want an international force ? They're full of crap and anybody can see right through their silly game that they're playing.

[Saad]

Siniora wants a force of Blue Helmets to assist its own troops in South Lebanon. In Shebaa Farms, there would be exclusively international troops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siniora_Plan

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Saad

Siniora wants a force of Blue Helmets to assist its own troops in South Lebanon. In Shebaa Farms, there would be exclusively international troops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siniora_Plan

That sounds better than the plan of the arab league.The arab league at the UN today wants UNIFIL, which is the same incompetant UN wankers that are already there and that have been there for decades.

Lebanese army = ineffective cowards and half of them are hezbollah
UNIFIL = ineffective cowards that have accomplished nothing for the past 28 years in Lebanon.

That sounds like a sure recipe for success and disarming Hezbollah.

[Saad]

The UN failed because it draws its troops from weak countries. Ghana is the biggest contributor of troops to the UN. It would be neat if either Ghana trained better, or if other, more martially inclined countries contributed forces. The superpowers wouldn't, since they already contribute so much money, but countries like India and Mexico, with developed, disciplined armies,

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by Monique

I agree with Y3a, blame the victims; if hezbollah did not exist Israel would have never invaded Lebanon. After a while you get tired of suicide bombers.

And if Israel was never formed there would be peace in the Middle East.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by jamil5454

And if Israel was never formed there would be peace in the Middle East.

And if Muslims didn't exist, the World Trade Center would still be standing.

[Spliffdaddy]

Send in the UN?

They've *been* there.

Anybody remember the UN resolution that was supposed to rid Lebanon of Hezblowa?

You know, the same folks that seemed surprised that Hezblowa had 10,000 rockets.

Seems obvious to me that the UN has been supporting and aiding Hezblowa the entire time.

Which explains why Israeli war planes bombed those "observers" six times.