Jews sans frontiers, a British antiZionist blog, keeps tabs on the British perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and while the “second” Lebanon war, if one can call it that, may seem far a field of Palestine, Lebanon is clearly a integral aspect of Israeli-Arab strife, which has its origins in 1948.
It is hardly mentionable that Hezbollah, Israel’s adversary in the second Lebanon war, was constituted to protect the southern Shiite Arabs of Lebanon from massacres that occurred during the first war in 1982, when over 20,000, mostly civilian Lebanese were subjected to Sharon’s indiscriminate killing, for which he was theretofore wanted by the Hague as a war criminal. Sharon proved unequivocally that a civilian population is no match for a modern, US-armed army and air force, as evidenced by the many pictures of shredded children and adults killed in Lebanese villages and towns. And for those who may not know it, the massacre of thirty some children in Qana was only a repetition of a previous massacre that occurred in Qana in 1982, showing once again that American F-16s and armaments are still up to their full capabilities. It is hoped that US Air Force generals took pride in this reliability.
Now that the Winograd Committee has concluded that Israel lost the second Lebanon War, observers are taking note, as this report from Jews sans frontiers describes:
Just a quick lunchtime post because the Independent has one of its in your face type covers about Israel:
And the cover’s justified by a good bit of coverage including a good article by (Robert) Fisk. I’m sure Fisk has openly blamed Hizbollah for this war before now. Now he seems to have relegated them to mere catalyst, which is probably a fairer comment.
Anyway, get this: Looking back at this terrifying, futile war, with its grotesque ambitions to “destroy” the Iranian-supported Hizbollah militia, it is incredible Mr Olmert did not realise within days that his grandiose demands would founder. Insisting the two captured Israeli soldiers should be released and the militarily powerless Lebanese government should be held responsible for their capture was never going to produce political or military results favourable to Israel. One would have to add that Tzipi Livni’s demand for the Prime Minister’s resignation sits oddly with her support for this preposterous war.
Another paragraph or two from the more fleshy parts of the Fisk’s article will hopefully keep me within fair use limits, but it is worth the risk:
Robert Fisk: Olmert undone by the militia he said he could destroy
Published: 03 May 2007
So it has come to this. All those bodies, all those photographs of dead children – more than 1,400 cadavers (we are not including the 230 or so Hizbollah fighters and the Israeli soldiers who died) – are to be commemorated with the possible resignation of an Israeli prime minister who knew, and who cared, many Israelis suspect, little about war. Yes, Hizbollah provoked last summer’s folly by capturing two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese-Israel border, but Israel’s response – so totally out of proportion to the sin – produced another debacle for the Israeli army and, presumably now, for its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
(snip)
Day after day, for 34 days after 12 July, the Israeli air force systematically destroyed the major infrastructure of Lebanon, repeatedly claiming it was trying to avoid civilian casualties, while the world’s press watched its aircraft blasting men, women and children to pieces in Lebanon. Israelis, too, were savagely killed in this war by Hizbollah’s Iranian-provided missiles. But it only proved the Israeli army, famous in legend and song but not in reality, could not protect their own people. Hizbollah fighters were told by their own leadership that if they would just withstand the air attacks, they could bite the Israeli land forces when they invaded.
(Read the rest of the article here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2504638.ece)
A last word from Jews sans frontieres: “Let’s not forget all those Zionists who supported this war until they realised that Israel had lost it.”
That was also our experience here in America, as the mainstream media and blogs ripped at Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, it was said, if by no one else, at least according to the US State Department, which of course pays close attention to Israeli hasbara.
But lost in the shuffle were similar gory tales of massacres of civilian populations in Gaza, where over 600, mostly civilian men, women, and children, were slaughtered by F-16 missiles and indiscriminate artillery shelling (yes, American made) of Palestinian neighborhoods. It was yet another prideful triumph of Israel’s (America’s) military power.
Jews sans frontiere’s link is: http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/
