Saturday, August 12, 2006

Oh my, another "mistake"--Qana, Khiam, Marwahin

Aljazeera.Net - Israel's attack on convoy a 'mistake': "'The attack was carried out based on a suspicion. It was found to be incorrect,' an army spokeswoman said."

Human Rights Watch analyzes the "mistakes" and finds that the mistakes add up to a pattern, namely a blatant disregard for the protected status of civilians.

Not only is there a pattern of attacks on protected persons, but the Israeli forces deliberately targetted civilian installations, including food stores, gasoline stations, fuel supplies, water storage sites, and civilian homes. The assertion that Hizballah is deployed in civilian areas does not excuse the invading force from practicing discrimination and proportionality in its targetting.

Of course, Israel had three underlying objectives, and all have been clearly stated by senior officials, including the Chief of Staff: to inflict an object lesson on Lebanon and its government, to punish the civilian population for supporting Hizballah, and to create a killing zone in southern Lebanon.
Residing in the background is that fact that many members of the security establishment in Israel do not take Lebanon very seriously as a country. I surmise that they would not be particularl distressed if Lebanon collapsed into self-consuming turmoil, although this might irk George Bush a bit.

Also see this earlier post referring to an article by Adam Shatz.

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