"Rights Group Accuses Hezbollah of Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians in Israel War" by Hassan M. Fattah/New York Times Agust 31, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Aug. 30 — A report by Human Rights Watch accusing Hezbollah of indiscriminately attacking civilians during its war with Israel last summer has set off a furor in Lebanon.
The controversy has prompted the country’s embattled prime minister, Fouad Siniora, to join Hezbollah, his political opponent, and other Lebanese leaders in condemning Human Rights Watch, accusing it of blaming the victims of the conflict.
[How about that? The accusation brought together Hezbollah and Siniora?]
More than 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 128 Israelis, many of them soldiers, were killed in the monthlong war, which began when Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers patrolling the border between Lebanon and Israel.
[Ooooh! Some truth for a change? A little fart mist of a half-truth, anyway]
For weeks, Israeli warplanes bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs and in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah militants fired thousands of rockets into Israeli towns and fought Israeli forces in Lebanon’s border villages, in the heaviest fighting in Lebanon since the end of its civil war in 1990.
Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia, called its resistance to Israel a “divine victory” and has since led a political confrontation with the government of Mr. Siniora, demanding that he resign or give a greater say in the government to Hezbollah and its allies.
[Been protesting in Beirut since last December!!]
In its report, released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch describes a situation in which hundreds of Hezbollah rockets were fired indiscriminately at targets with no clear military significance, many apparently aimed at civilian areas in northern Israel, killing at least 39 civilians.
Such conduct amounts to war crimes, Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, said in a telephone interview. She cited more than 100 statements and communiqués issued by Hezbollah as evidence of intent to cause harm in civilian areas in response to Israeli attacks on civilians.
Ms. Whitson: “The fact that more Israeli civilians didn’t die is not a tribute to Hezbollah but a tribute to Israeli bomb shelters. The point we’re making is that even though they say ‘only 43 Israeli civilians were killed’ that doesn’t make it O.K.”
[Oh, I agree! Which is why I rail against the murderous policies of USrael!
As for the Muslims, sure looks like self-defense to me!]
Human Rights Watch says it plans to release another report next week outlining Israeli violations during the war.
Even before Human Rights Watch released the report, Hezbollah began an orchestrated campaign to discredit the group and the report, with scathing, often personal, criticism of some of the researchers, saying they were operating “in direct collaboration with the enemy,” and were “equating the victims with the aggressors.” Human Rights Watch has often been criticized for being biased against Israel, though.
[By who, Israel?
Any critic of Israel is accused of anti-semitism, even though the charge is false!]
The advocacy group was forced to cancel a news conference planned for Wednesday in Beirut to release the report, Ms. Whitson said, at the insistence of personnel at the hotel where it was to be held and after growing concern over threats of protests outside.
Hussein Rahal, a spokesman for Hezbollah, in an interview on Thursday: “You can criticize us, but there is a difference between coming here with a decision to condemn and coming here to examine the facts objectively.”
[I agree!]
Mr. Siniora and other members of the government joined in the criticism of Human Rights Watch, saying that it should have released a report on Israel first. Mr. Siniora’s office said in a statement that Human Rights Watch did not show “such vigor toward Israeli crimes committed against Lebanese civilians.”
[Thanks, HRW, for bring together the Lebanese!! Really, I mean that!]
Officials at Human Rights Watch said they expected the report, one of a series of investigations into the war, to set off a debate. But they did not expect the reaction to be a concerted attempt to silence any criticism of Hezbollah.
[No, people are just sick of being blamed for things that are shitstink Israel's fault!]
Ms. Whitson: “We knew that we were putting on the table something people are uncomfortable talking about in Lebanon, which is that Hezbollah did some things wrong in the war. The point we’re making again and again is that civilians are universal no matter where they are or who they are.”
[Oh, I agree! Which is why I rail against the murderous policies of USrael!
As for the Muslims, sure looks like self-defense to me!]
But many Lebanese say the criticism of Hezbollah only served to open healing wounds.
Alain Aoun, a senior member of the Free Patriotic Movement, led by the opposition leader Gen. Michel Aoun [that is the Christian Aoun, the sworn enemy of Shi'ite Hezbollah, who is now working with them against the US-backed Sionara government]:
“When you hear Siniora, an opponent of Hezbollah, say something like that against the report you know that a line was crossed. It is like putting someone who committed one mistake and someone who committed 100 mistakes on the same level. The war wounds are still open, the massacres, the dead bodies, the huge losses are still clear images in people’s heads, and for that no one can accept that Hezbollah be put at the same level as Israel.”
[I agree!!! I ABSOLUTELY AGREE!]
