It apparently never occurred to anyone in our leading human rights organisations or the Western media that the same moral and legal standards ought be applied to the behaviour of Israel and Hizbullah during the war on Lebanon 18 months ago. Belatedly, an important effort has been made to set that right.
A new report, written by a respected Israeli human rights organisation, one representing the country’s Arab minority not its Jewish majority, has unearthed evidence showing that during the fighting Israel committed war crimes not only against Lebanese civilians — as was already known — but also against its own Arab citizens. This is an aspect of the war that has been almost entirely neglected until now.
The report also sheds a surprising light on the question of what Hizbullah was aiming at when it fired hundreds of rockets on northern Israel. Until the report’s publication last month, I had been all but a lone voice arguing that the picture of what took place during the war was far more complex than generally accepted.
The new report follows a series of inquiries by the most influential human rights groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to identify the ways in which international law was broken during Israel’s 34-day assault on Lebanon. However, both organisations failed to examine, except in the most cursory and dismissive way, Israel’s treatment of its own civilians during the war. That failure may also have had serious repercussions for their ability to assess Hizbullah’s actions.
A critical reading of Jonathan Cook on Hezbollah and Israel
Sol Salbe
Disclosure: Jonathan Cook is a journalist whom I have previously described as being more critical of Israel than he needs to be. I am not a fan. With that out of the way I think that the following is an example of how not to do a good job reporting. Cook takes a report which I regard as both valid and valuable on the behaviour of both the Israeli military and Hezbollah during the war. He then proceeds to add his own comments. Some of this are valid but far too many are simply wrong, (and, as I understand it, Cook can read Hebrew and he therefore ought to know they are wrong.) The result is an article with credibility gaps that uncritical supporters of Israel can drive a D9 bulldozer through, without touching the sides. Perhaps some audiences will ignore the details and choose to trust Cook. It may not be important for some if the central thrust remains valid. But unless you are only preaching to converted, and do not wish to convince anyone of your case, it is important to tell the truth. Why score an own goal for your opponents?
Let’s get down to specifics.
Israel had held on to a handful of Lebanese prisoners after its pullback.1 Most of these prisoners, including some who were specifically kidnapped for the purpose of exchanging them for an Israeli navigator, were actually exchanged on 29 January 2004 for a high-ranking Israeli drug dealer and the remains of three Israeli soldiers. At the last moment Israel declined to hand over the longest serving Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar (regarded by many Israelis as particularly unsavoury) who was actually part of a Palestinian rather Lebanese outfit. It was the Kuntar’s release rather than anyone held over from the occupation of Lebanon that formed Hezbollah central demand.
UN catrographers disagree, backing Hizbullah’s claim that the area is Lebanese.2 No they didn’t. In fact Israel sought and received a certificate from the UN that it has withdrawn out of every square millimetre of Lebanese territory. After that an Israeli researcher found the documentary evidence in Paris showing that in the Shebaa farms actually belonged to Lebanon. But it was only after the war that UN cartographers expressed the view that the area may indeed belong to Lebanon after all. The present writer happens to think that on the balance of the evidence the UN made a mistake in its original determination but re-writing history, particularly when it is so well known, is just not on.
Hizbullah attacked a border post3. It was actually a mobile patrol. There’s no political significance here but it does show sloppy journalism.
Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs4 A fair proportion of these were actually MLRS rockets and shells fired from the ground. These are even less accurate than air borne bombs. The significance here is that it appears that it was the ground troops (composed mainly of conscripts and reservists) who are likely to be the source of Meron Rapoport’s reports on the subject in Haaretz. A lot less gets leaked out of the air force which mainly uses career pilots. My understanding is up to four million bomblets were used.
The hostile climate in Israel towards the fifth of the population who are Arab has made publication of the report a risky business. Azmi Bishara, Israel’s leading Arab politician and a major critic of Israel’s behaviour during the Lebanon war, is currently in exile under possible death sentence5. Cook uses a slight of hand here - sure there’s a death sentence for treason in Israel but seeing that it has never been applied no one in the Israeli media or Left blogosphere has seriously expressed the opinion that Bishara faces death (I know of one private expression of that opinion though). Of course a life sentence in an Israel jail could be perceived as worse than death. [On the other hand Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians without resorting to any trial through “targetted killings” which the Hebrew media usually refers to by the more accurate rubric of “liquidations”.]
Nonetheless they have successfully intimidated most of the Arab minority into silence.6 As an avid reader of the Israeli media including left-wing websites I’ve not noticed any cowering by Palestinian Israelis. I’d be interested to see Cook’s proof
…a reporter from Maariv quoted parents in the Arab village of Fassuta complaining that children were wetting their beds because of the frightening bark of tanks stationed outside their homes.7 I couldn’t find that report (not all Ma’ariv articles make it to the Net.) I did, however, find a report from a year later where military correspondent Amir Buhbut of Ma’ariv was reminiscing about the time he spent “with the commander of the IDF’s Artillery Corps, Brigadier-General Lawrence Mualem, when he conducted the ‘rain of shells’ on southern Lebanon.” Again it may sound better to talk about tanks but the bombardment that did take place from that location was carried out by heavy guns that do much more damage.
…it was widely reported during the war that 12 soldiers were killed when a Hizbullah rocket struck the rural community of Kfar Giladi, close to the northern border8. Cook is being disingenuous here. The reason the soldiers were killed was that they were outside Kfar Giladi and had not made use of its ample shelters. [And did not take any alternative measures such as digging themselves into trenches.] This matter has received wide-spread publicity as some of the parents of the dead soldiers accused the kibbutz of deliberately keeping their sons out in order to minimise the risk of Hezbollah attacks. The IDF had recently cleared the kibbutz pointing out that it was the IDF’s decision not to let the soldiers in. With ample evidence of Israeli operation from within Jewish communities why pick one where the very opposite is well documented?
Plainly there are just too many errors and misleading statements here. It would be better for Cook to have concentrated on the actual report rather than his embellishments. As it is, he is at his best when does precisely that as he does here:
“The Human Rights Association, however, reaches a rather different conclusion, one based on the available evidence. Its research shows a clear correlation between an Arab community having an Israeli army base located next to it and the likelihood of it being hit by Hizbullah rockets. In short, Arab communities targeted by Hizbullah were almost exclusively those in which the Israeli army was based.
“’The study found that the Arab towns and villages that suffered the most intensive attacks during the war were ones that were surrounded by military installations, either on a permanent basis or temporarily during the course of the war,’ the report states.”