Qana and Israel's "full investigation". posted by Richard Seymour

It was sickening enough watching the initial news reporting, in which phrases like "another attack that will enter Arab folklore about the Zionist oppressor" were ubiquitous. I quote directly, by the way, in this instance from Sky News. Arabs have "folklore" - that's the kind of people they are. Kosovars did not have "folklore" about the "Serb oppressor", and - quite obviously - Americans do not have "folklore" about 9/11 or Pearl Harbour. "Folklore" is a nomadic discourse, the kind of knowledge passed on around desert fires by noble savages, with ever mounting accretions. Yes, we know those Arabs alright. Subsequent headlines included such nonsense as "Israel vows to end Terror Threat". Israel is forever vowing this and that. The use of the word 'vow' connotes earnestness, a solemn promise, perhaps one made before God. This is its sense in common usage. Will we hear of how Hezbollah "vows" to end "Zionist Threat" (which is, after all, more real)? At least we didn't have to hear that it was a beauty pageant.

Now we have Israel's investigation of its own crimes. The Qana massacre was a deliberate attack on civilians, as have been the repeated bombings of suburbs in Beirut and ambulances and villages and fleeing vehicles and medicine and milk and the infrastructure. I won't call it collective punishment, because punishment implies guilt, whereas this is unprovoked murder. Let's revisit: Israel claimed that the building was destroyed by Hezbollah eight hours after its strike, local residents and aid workers quickly dispelled that; Israel claimed that there were Hezbollah rockets being fired from inside or around the building, the Red Cross quickly dismissed that, as did local residents and reporters on the scene, and now Israel has admitted it lied. The lengths to which Israel and its apologists have gone to lie about this have resulted in such a compendium of baroque and fanciful leaps of the imagination that the author of Tristram Shandy would blush to glance upon it.

One of the most resilient fantasies in this respect is that Hezbollah is so wicked, so vile, that it uses human beings as shields behind which it can be as eeeevvilll as it wants. Well, why not? We heard much the same thing every time the invaders of Iraq bombed a house or a market place: Saddam's hid alla his chemcool and nucular weapons around civilians and forced us to bomb them. It should be reasonably well known now that this is nonsense, but commentators continue to spout it as does the Israeli embassy.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said this:

[O]ur investigations have not found evidence to support Israeli allegations that Hizbullah are intentionally endangering Lebanese civilians by systematically fighting from civilian positions. We can't exclude the possibility that it happens - but time and again villagers tell us that Hizbullah is fighting from the hills. Meanwhile, the homes hit by Israel have only civilians in them.

The current Israeli actions are not only wrong, but - short of compelling evidence to the contrary, which so far is nowhere to be found - also war crimes. Israel's leaders, and their friends elsewhere in the world, must face up to that truth.

And yet the Israeli spokesperson insists on spreading this shit through every row she manages to hoe: "We are deeply regretful ... terrible images ... Hezbollah rocket launchers ...human shields ... terrible tragedy ... full investigation ... Hezbollah targeting Israeli civilians."

This morning, Israel's "full investigation" repeated what IDF propaganda has been saying throughout: the building was hit by mistake, and Hezbollah used human shields. But the story has changed. Now, it's no longer simply rocket-fire. Now, the claim is that they believed that the place was a "hiding place for terrorists" and had no knowledge that civilians were present. Much seems to rely on the definition of a "terrorist". Let's see how the Israeli government defines it. According to Haim Ramon, "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah." Israel also claims that had its intelligence indicated the presence of civilians, the attack would not have been carried out - quite why this should be so when they have been blasting civilians to molecular compounds everywhere else remains something of a mystery. But since for Israel there can by definition be no civilians left in south Lebanon, Israel's claim could be considered accurate. Everyone was a terrorist for them, and so it remains. According to Israel's Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, "This affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon ... Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate -- not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of Hezbollah posts." What is more, according to mainstream religious opinion in Israel:

According to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy.

So, you see, the claim that "we didn't intend to kill civilians" can only be made because they don't recognise in their military doctrine that any civilians exist in south Lebanon or in Beirut or anywhere else.

Israel has claimed that 150 rockets were launched from Qana and the area around it, and that its guidelines instruct bombers to destroy buildings in villages where rocket fire was launched, and where civilians have been instructed to flee. Repeat: Israel specifically state that any civilian who had not fled, despite the fact that the roads had been bombed, that ambulances were bombed, that fleeing cars and vehicles were bombed, that the infrastructure that might have provided the means of escape was destroyed, were terrorists by definition. This bombing was an act of policy, not a "mistake" as they insist. But there is also an intriguing sleight of hand going on here: no reporter has been able to verify that rockets were fired from among the houses in Qana. According to Tom Clonan, security correspondent of the Irish Times, it is extremely unlikely that rockets could have been fired from those locations. But as mentioned above Israel no longer claims to have evidence that rockets were fired from that specific location - only that rockets were being fired around the vicinity of the village and that they were under instructions to bomb. This is being interpreted in some press as "initial statements confirmed". And that's how it works: they lie, and everything they say is quickly disproven, they change their lies, and these are disproven, they change their lies back again with some minor alterations, and then say "our initial suspicions have been confirmed". And the ovine media baaah: "Israel admits mistake".