I promised I would report on the horrible things that happened on both sides of this conflict, and today has seen some examples of this–in abundance–for the IDF.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that IDF aircraft struck a Red Cross abulance in Lebanon. And Reuters reports that “an Israeli air raid in south Lebanon killed four U.N. military observers on Tuesday in an attack which United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan described as “apparently deliberate.
Of course investigations will be conducted, but ultimately, whose investigation will you believe? The UN’s? The Red Cross’s? The IDF? Someone else? Again, this is a situation in which no one at this point knows whether either of these tragic cases were the result of a deliberate targeting. Frankly, I think Kofi Annan’s immediate rush to judgement that the UN deaths were the result of a purposeful assault by Israel is irresponsible and simply nt substantiated by any evidence on the ground. I’m sure many on the left whose default position is to hate Israel will immediately assume the worst, and reject any investigation findings which contradict Annan’s knee-jerk conclusions.
Update: From Haaretz, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman apologized for the deaths of UN peacekeepers calling them an accident; he also made the claim that Hezbollah has been using UN peaeckeepers as a “cover” presumably to launch cross-border attacks from. He also stated that Israel refused to conduct a joint Israel-UN investigation on the bombing, arguing that no other country in a similar circumstance would have agreed to a joint investigation either.
Speaking of anti-Israel hatred on the left, Commondreams, a website where I get leads for a lot of articles I end up posting about, decided to publish Cecelia Lucas’ “Love Poem for Hizbullah from a Non-Violence Lover”. Think the title is misleading? You be the judge:
I Don’t Want to Love You, But I Do
You were born out of death to a life in a cage
Where bombs are not the only reason people die
Fed by the violence of hunger and homelessness
Raised by colonialism
Your heart and your will still grew strong
You scare me
Not just because they tell me to be scared
Not just because they repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of 1983
Begging me to understand
Americans are worth more than Lebanese
Why do they never tell me about Jihad al Bina
That you have created so much
Saved so many lives
Improved so many more
It scares me
When I admit to myself
That I would be more scared without you
If I still took the time to see
To see the violence that does not just fall from the skies
that exists in hunger and homelessness
in colonialism
It scares me
That my hope is tangled up
In actions I would never want to commit
But I don’t sleep much these days
And I’ve tried hard
But I haven’t found
Anything
to give me hope that they will listen
They repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of Gaza withdrawal
Hoping we won’t see
The violence that continues
That kills in so many ways
Hoping we will now support it
Or at least stop looking
They insist talk does not work
When there is no one to talk to
It is hard to find an interlocutor
When you’re not willing to listen
To see
To feel
How do you keep faith that talk will work
When even they are insisting it won’t?
I am learning to have hope in you
I am learning to see you as so much more
Than those actions I would never want to commit
You amaze me.
Born out of death to a life in a cage
Raised by colonialism
You did not accept imprisonment as natural
You did not accept hunger as justice
You did not accept
the ceaseless killing in so many ways
Of those next to you
Or those farther away
I love you
But I will never be yours
I don’t want you inside me
You are too male for me
And I cannot, gratefully, fully silence the voice that insists:
Some deaths you did accept
Including of some who were listening
That is why the full statement that the question-marks pry me with reads:
It is sad, but I’m learning to have hope in Hizbulla
Maybe it is the naivety
of one whose life has never been directly threatened
I still believe:
Be the change you want to see in the world
I’m sorry, but this is just the most offensive, disgusting thing I have ever read on a website I have blogrolled. Hezbollah is dedicated to the wholesale destruction of the state of Israel as well as Jews worldwide and is indiscriminately firing rockets into areas heavily populated by civilians in Israel. Perhaps the author of this screed should recognize that her hatred of all things Israel has pushed her into support (which she seems to want to justiify as being somewhat “conflicted”) of a brutal terrorist organization bent on genocide.
If liberals/leftists want to have any credibility in the areas of humanitarian and or international law, they ought to renounce evil and terrorism wherever it stands. And Commondreams should be ashamed of themselves for their hypocrisy in publishing editorials which express support for terrorist organizations.
To get a sense of IDF’s game plan going forward, check out this interesting article by Yossi Melman in Haaretz (h/t War and Piece).
(7/26): William Arkin at The Washington Post recaps the current situation.
Update: Josh Marshall discusses the tragedy at Qana, where dozens of Lebanese civilians were killed by IDF airstrikes. While the attack is certainly to be condemned for its human toll, it’s also important to keep in mind that Hezbollah has been mounting missile attacks against Israel from the village, or at least the IDF claims as much. If the IDF’s purported evidence of this is not forthcoming, it may be impossible to justify such a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions by Israel. If such evidence is presented, however, then this airstrike could possibly be considered a defensive action on behalf of Israeli towns being showered with thousands of missiles by the terrorist group.
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