How can 'terrorism' be condemned while war crimes go without rebuke?

[muriel_volestrangler]

As if we didn't know it already, the conflict in Lebanon shows that truth and war don't mix. All parties to the tragedy of the Middle East resort to disinformation and historical falsification to bolster their case, but rarely has an attempt to rewrite the past occurred so soon after the fact. Israeli ministers and their supporters have justified the bombardment of Lebanon as "a matter of survival". Total war has been declared on Israel, so Israel is entitled to use the methods of total war in self-defence. This would be reasonable if it were true, but it isn't. It's completely false.

The conflict was triggered by a Hizbullah operation in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and three killed. Let's be frank, this wasn't exactly the Tet offensive. It certainly didn't justify Israel's ferocious onslaught against the very fabric of Lebanese society. Yes, the rocket attacks on Haifa are an appalling crime, but they followed rather than preceded Israel's decision to escalate the fighting. They cannot provide retrospective justification for Israeli strategy.

The crisis has also been accompanied by the selective and often inappropriate use of the term "terrorism". Following the Israeli government, George Bush and Tony Blair were at it again on Friday, blaming "terrorists" for sparking the conflict. The purpose behind this is obvious enough. In the context of America's war on terror, anyone claiming to be engaged in the fight against this most contested of notions gets carte blanche to do as they please. But the result has been to politicise the term in ways that render it effectively useless as a category of moral judgment or policy analysis.

It is certainly true that Hizbullah has been linked to a string of classic terrorist attacks going back more than 20 years, including suicide bombings against civilian targets, hostage-taking and the hijacking of a TWA flight. A particularly vile example was the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were murdered. Hizbullah strongly denies involvement, but the truth is probably murkier than either side pretends. Responsibility for these attacks has often been attributed to Hizbullah's External Security Organisation (ESO), a unit believed to be under the operational control of Iranian intelligence rather than the Hizbullah's Lebanese leadership. Britain is one country that draws this distinction, proscribing ESO, but not Hizbullah itself, under the Terrorism Act.
...
David Clark is a former Labour government adviser

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1833727,00.html

[RethugAssKicker]

1. The Right Wing pundits

have been saying that Hezbollah has been firing missiles at them for the last six years... How much of this is true?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. There have been some missiles

Many in the Shebaa Farms area - which Hezbollah says is part of Lebanon, while Lsrael says its part of the Golan Heiths of Syria that it's occupying. Outside of that area, by my count from this link, there were 8 Israeli soldiers and 7 civilians killed by Hezbollah attacks between 2000 and the start of teh current conflict.

http://www.israel.org/NR/exeres/9EE216D7-82EF-4274-B80D-6BBD1803E8A7,frameless.htm?NRMODE=Published

So it's true that Hezbollah makes illegal attacks on Israel (for which Israel has made small scale attacks against Hezbollah in retaliation). The problem now is the proportion of Israel's current attack - and it direction at parts of Lebanon that are definitely not supporters of Hezbollah, let alone under its control.

[RethugAssKicker]

4. Did Israel just stand by and do nothing ???

According to the "experts" .. they did.. and are now fed up!

[Laotra]

5. Against Military targets

In continued low level border skirmishes, "violations" from both sides.

The current "strategic bombing" of Northern Israel was in responce to Israel's "strategic bombing" of whole Lebanon.

[rock]

2. in a word: hypocrisy

[CJCRANE]

6. When you have state leaders

who are as extreme as the terrorists.

[yurbud]

7. stealing a country's oil is a war crime too, and nobody talks about that