The Dusty Dog

Who's Firing On Whom?

It seems to me that people tend to forget that Israel is not the aggressor here. Hezbollah was the aggressor. They are a bunch of street thugs who have always targeted civilians, continue to target civilians and are attempting to kill as many Israelis as they can.

Israel is in retaliatory mode. It's just that Israel has better weapons, and better surveilance and a stronger military. Of course, they are going to end up killing more people in their crossfire. Hezbollah fires their rockets from Lebanese neighborhoods into Israeli neighborhoods, and if they get lucky, hit a hospital or an apartment building. Israel targets the source of the rocket fire, those same Lebanese neighborhoods, and unfortunately the civilians, whom the Hezbollah are hiding behind, using as human shields, are the ones who get killed. According to Honest Reporting:

Some 150 rockets have been fired at Israeli cities from Qana over the past 20 days. This IDF map traces how these rockets have been launched in 30 salvos at Haifa and other locations, including Nahariya, Ma'alot and Kiryat Shmona. To date, 18 Israeli civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded as a result of this rocket fire.

Hezbollah has been deliberately hiding behind and operating from within civilian areas in the knowledge that Israel does not deliberately target civilians. Thus, when a terrible accident such as Qana occurs, Hezbollah is presented with a propaganda coup, as is currently the case. Indeed, Australia's Herald Sun published damning photos "showing that Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia. The images...show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons. Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon."

This is just a PR game for the Hezbollah, and that is one game they are winning. The graphic above says it all.

posted by Dusty Dog at 7/31/2006