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- July 30, 2006
Qana
The latest news from Lebanon is that a terrible tragedy has happened in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, with the Israelis bombing a building sheltering refugees, killing 54 people, including 37 children.
There have now been something like 523 Lebanese killed, and 51 Israelis killed, in the fighting that erupted almost 3 weeks ago when Hezbollah kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers. All a terrible waste of lives, and ultimately going to mean nothing in the overall context of the Middle East …only constructive negotiations will solve anything there.
This latest tragedy will add fuel to calls for Israel to back off on its strikes against the Lebanese bases of Hezbollah. I’ve thought Israel highly justified in most of its actions. Destroying Hezbollah and similar terrorist organisations is a commendable objective. Unfortunately, given these groups elect to base themselves in civilian areas, often deliberately sheltering in sensitive locations, even precision bombing is going to kill some innocent people. I hope Israel is doing all it can to choose its targets and attack them in ways that minimise civilian deaths and injuries.
There is a key difference between Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah’s on Israel. Hezbollah’s rockets and missile attacks are deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. I don’t believe Israel is deliberately trying to kill Lebanese citizens.
Update (31/7/2006): Having said constructive negotiations are the way to solve the Hezbollah/Israel problems, I mean from the viewpoint of rational people. I suspect Hezbollah will not negotiate away from its position of the destruction of Israel, so what can the Israelis do but pursue the objective of destroying Hezbollah.
Technorati Tags: Qana. Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, civilian deaths
3 Responses to “Qana”
I had to comment that I agree with your common sense POV on the Israeli situation.
Your comment that: “only constructive negotiations will solve anything there” is no doubt true but I can’t help feeling (and saying — see my latest post) that it can never happen — there is nothing, from the Hezbollah POV, to negotiate.
By Whymrhymer on Jul 30, 2006
In the current situation, there can be no doubt that Hizbollah needs to have the majority of blame apportioned to it. They snatched the 2 Israeli soldiers, they choose to operate out of villages and urban areas.
Israel is not totally innocent in this matter. While modern munitions can prove to be inaccurate, somebody south of the border elected to use cluster weapons when bombarding suspected positions in villages. Similarly, levelling an apartment building in southern Beirut to get to one person doesn’t make a surgical strike either.
Constructive negotiations? Possibly the answer. Will Israel release over 300 Hizbollah prisoners in exchange for their 2 soldiers? Will Hizbollah renounce their declared aim of pushing Israel into the sea? Will the non-Shia Lebanese bear animosity towards Hizbollah or Israel for what’s happened?
By Boysenberry on Jul 30, 2006
Do you seriously think Israel is not deliberetely targetting civialians?! Could you please pull the corporate media from your ears.
If you would open you eyes and look at the numbers. Israel has killed more Lebanese civilians than the other way around and more civilians than terrorists, whilst Hezbullah have killed more military personnel than civilians.
By Benjamin Solah on Jul 31, 2006