LENIN'S TOMB: Hiding Behind Cedars?: Why Israel targetted civilians.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Hiding Behind Cedars?: Why Israel targetted civilians. posted by Richard Seymour

From my inbox, a brief useful article by Muhammad Ali Khalidi of the American University of Beirut:

A few days before the ceasefire took effect, a leaflet dropped by an Israeli plane wafted down outside my office window in the center of Beirut. It read, in halting Arabic: "To Lebanese Citizens: You can restore the aroma of cedars to Lebanon if you wish!!! And brush the destroyer of Lebanon off your shoulders". The accompanying caricature showed the ostensible destroyer, Hizbullah leader Hasan Nasrallah, hiding behind a cedar tree.

At the time the truce took effect, the estimated death toll in Lebanon was put at around 1,100, up to 90% of them civilians, while official Israeli sources put their dead at 156, the majority of them combatants. The disproportionate number of civilian casualties on the Lebanese side is frequently explained by Israeli spokespersons by saying that they are fighting an enemy that is deliberately "hiding behind civilians" or using them as "human shields." In the words of the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, "When you sleep with a missile, sometimes you do not wake up in the morning."[1]

This gruesome argument is used to corroborate the claim that there is a "moral disequivalence" between Israel and Hizbullah, since the latter deliberately attacks civilians (Israeli) and hides behind civilians (Lebanese), while the former does everything possible to avoid harm to noncombatants. This claim has been repeated by George Bush and Bill Clinton alike. But there are several problems with the idea that Hizbullah uses the citizens of Lebanon as human shields.

First, Israel has yet to supply conclusive proof that a Hizbullah rocket launcher or similar military installation was positioned in close proximity to civilians. Several videotapes have been provided by the Israeli military allegedly depicting missiles being fired adjacent to civilian areas.[2] Most show rocket launchers in orchards or open fields. Although some are in the vicinity of buildings, there is no way to know if the buildings in question are residential, or indeed if they were occupied by civilians at the time.

Ironically, at least two Arab members of the Israeli Knesset have recently charged that Israel places its own military installations near inhabited Arab towns and villages in northern Israel, which they say accounts in part for the disproportionate number of Arabs (almost half) among Hizbullah's civilian victims.[3]

Second, none of the many foreign journalists stationed in southern Lebanon have produced evidence of Hizbullah installations or personnel stationed in close proximity to civilians. In a report released on August 3, Human Rights Watch "found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack."[4]

Third, military analysts argue that the primary reason that Israel has been unable to decisively defeat Hizbullah is that they have placed many of their fighters and their weapons in underground bunkers in hard-to-reach locations. Veteran Israeli military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff wrote on August 10 in Ha'aretz that in at least one battle, "Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside. The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets."[5]

Fourth, Hizbullah, which has overwhelming support in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, would undoubtedly lose much of its popular appeal were it to deliberately place its military installations in the vicinity of non-combatants. To suggest otherwise is to presume that Lebanese civilians, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are positively suicidal.

If the high number of casualties among Lebanese civilians is not due to Hizbullah's hiding behind civilians, why else would Israel produce so many innocent victims and risk widespread international condemnation? Why, in the words of Human Rights Watch, have "Israeli forcesS systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon"[6]?

From the outset of the conflict, Israeli officials asserted that at least part of their aim was to put pressure on the Lebanese government and ordinary Lebanese citizens to compel Hizbullah to disarm.[7] If a high price is paid by ordinary people, the theory goes, then they are more likely to pressure Hizbullah to lay down its weapons.

As many of the leaflets dropped over Lebanon demonstrate, Israel has been waging open psychological warfare to achieve this aim. But targeting Lebanese civilians is unlikely to make them more hostile to Hizbullah. The wrath of the Lebanese, among Hizbullah's core constituency and beyond, seems largely directed at Israel. One poll in late July showed a staggering 87% of Lebanese supporting Hizbullah in its conflict with Israel.[8]

Israel's offensive in Lebanon, the overwhelming majority of whose victims have been innocent civilians, will lead to greater popular resentment and hostility towards the Jewish state. This means that we can look forward to more years of warfare and bloodshed.

1. http://www.israel-un.org/sec_council/60thUNGA/gillerman30july2006.htm

2. http://www.standwithus.com/idf_videos.asp

3. Knesset member Azmi Bishara "has accused the Israeli government of providing no bomb shelters for the Arab population and using them as 'human shields' by placing artillery units beside Israeli Arab villages in the north." http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4778163.stm Similarly, Knesset member Sheikh Abbas Zako said in a statement: "During a short visit to offer condolences to the families of victims killed in Hizbullah's rocket attacks, I saw Israeli tanks shelling (south) Lebanon from the two towns of Arab Al-Aramisha and Tarshiha, which are predominantly populated Arabs." Zako stressed that the Israeli tanks are positioned just next to the houses of citizens. "Hizbullah's rockets are only a response to shelling by tanks positioned inside the towns," he said.
http://www.freespeechwar.com/smf/index.php?topic=2899.0

4. Human Rights Watch, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," volume 18, no. 3(E), August 2006, p.3. Accessed at: http://hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/

5. Ze'ev Schiff, "The IDF in Lebanon: Security zone not yet secure," Ha'aretz, 10 August 2006. Accessed at: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/748521.html

6. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13902.htm

7. See e.g. Paula Margulies, "The predicament of the Lebanese government," Jerusalem Post, 13 July 2006.

8. Cited in Nicholas Blanford, "Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base," Christian Science Monitor, 28 July 2006. Accessed at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0728/p06s01-wome.html