Weakened support of Hezbollah?

[Skeptic]

And we're to believe IDF stats when they've killed Nasrullah but he's still alive. And injured him without leaving a mark on him.

Er, the IDF DIDN'T say they killed Nasrallah. They said they bombed his bunker and believed he is in it, but they didn't say he--or anybody else--was killed in the attack.

As for the UN "knowing how to count", remember the "massacre" in Jenin, where the Palestinians instantly invented--and the world, including many foreign reporters and "experts", instantly believed--astronomical causalty numbers (all of them "women and children", of course)? Declaring massive amounts of civilian casualties, and convincing the not-too-hard-to-convince world to believe it, is SOP among the Arabs when israel fights back for once.

P.S.

Dustin and others said in this forum that just because Hizbullah is firing rockets randomly into israel it doesn't mean it "targets civilians"--the poor dears simply lack more accurate weapons (*sniff* poor Hizbullah *sniff*) so they have no choice than to randomly kill jews. After all, just because they lack good weapons doesn't forbid them the right to "self-defense", right?

Well, then, by the same logic, if everything Dustin & co. are saying is true, the IDF has no idea where Hizbullah is, and is just targeting people at random, hoping to hit Hizbullah fighters by chance, what's wrong with that? After all, just becuase they have bad intelligence and/or bad aim doesn't deny the IDF the right of self-defense, does it?

If the former isn't "targeting civlians", surely the latter isn't...

 

[WildCat]

The UN knows how to count. They say most of the casualties are civilian. They are counting the bodies they have seen.
Bodies which are kept in trucks. And a third of the bodies were bodies of children.

And we're to believe IDF stats when they've killed Nasrullah but he's still alive. And injured him without leaving a mark on him.

Explain how the UN got their sums wrong.

The UN counts who Hezbollah tells them to count. Just take away the militant's gun and voila! Another innocent civilian to add to the death count, since they don't wear uniforms. And if the militant is 17 why it's another innocent child killed by the evil Israelis who deliberatley targeted him!

FireGarden and Dustin, you are either suckers (very useful idiots) at best or terrorist sympathizers at worst. To suggest that Israelis pass up multiple Hezbollah targets until they find a bunch of children is just disgusting.

 

[Mycroft]

The UN knows how to count. They say most of the casualties are civilian. They are counting the bodies they have seen.
Bodies which are kept in trucks. And a third of the bodies were bodies of children.

And we're to believe IDF stats when they've killed Nasrullah but he's still alive. And injured him without leaving a mark on him.

Explain how the UN got their sums wrong.

The logical fallacy on display here is "appeal to false authority." The UN is not an expert on counting casualties.

 

[FireGarden]

The UN counts who Hezbollah tells them to count.

The UN is subserviant to Hezbollah!
And it's not just the UN. Israel has failed to control the media in Lebanon. All the world's press has reported the same thing.

Phase 1 of Israel's attack:
By July 18, Israeli had killed 215 people, all but 14 of them civilians. This includes 11 Lebanese Army soldiers.

The low number of Hezbollah killed indicates their fighters were not hiding amongst civilians. Israel attacked homes and roads, killing civilians almost a third of them children -- the same as a random sample of Lebanese citizens.

That they attacked homes without knowing Hezbollah are present is confirmed by the fact they hit the home of UN personel who remain buried under the rubble of that building

If the IDF is killing some Hizbollah now, then it's because they have moved into phase 2 -- a ground offensive. They are being met by Hezbollah -- who have not been hiding behind civilians.

 

[webfusion]

From IDF CHief of Staff Dan Halutz:

"Our fighting against Hezbollah is taking a heavy toll on [the group]," the army chief said. "The fact is that they avoid publishing the [true] number of their losses and the names of their men that were killed, and the fact that they feed the press dishonest information [shows] they are disconnected from reality."

Yep.

 

[FireGarden]

Anybody who believes the IDF is disconnected from reality. Things may be changing in Britain. BBC world's 10 O'clock news showed much more of the destruction in Lebanon than I have seen the BBC report before.

UK foreign minister Kim Howells had this to say:

Minister attacks 'inexplicable' Israeli tactics

Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, has accused the Israelis of attacking the "entire Lebanese nation" by bombing civilian targets.

[...] Speaking at the start of a visit to the Middle East, Mr Howells called on the US to face up to the brutality of Israeli military tactics.

[...] "The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes.

"These have not been surgical strikes."
Which is obvious to anybody who has seen the scale of the destruction.

 

[WildCat]

The UN is subserviant to Hezbollah!
And it's not just the UN. Israel has failed to control the media in Lebanon. All the world's press has reported the same thing.

You still don't get it, do you? The press is reporting what Hezbollah tells them. They're not out there counting bodies themselves, neither is the UN.

Phase 1 of Israel's attack:
By July 18, Israeli had killed 215 people, all but 14 of them civilians. This includes 11 Lebanese Army soldiers.

The low number of Hezbollah killed indicates their fighters were not hiding amongst civilians. Israel attacked homes and roads, killing civilians almost a third of them children -- the same as a random sample of Lebanese citizens.

That they attacked homes without knowing Hezbollah are present is confirmed by the fact they hit the home of UN personel who remain buried under the rubble of that building

If the IDF is killing some Hizbollah now, then it's because they have moved into phase 2 -- a ground offensive. They are being met by Hezbollah -- who have not been hiding behind civilians.

You're taking the term useful idiot to a new level.

 

[WildCat]

Anybody who believes the IDF is disconnected from reality. Things may be changing in Britain. BBC world's 10 O'clock news showed much more of the destruction in Lebanon than I have seen the BBC report before.

UK foreign minister Kim Howells had this to say:


"These have not been surgical strikes."
Which is obvious to anybody who has seen the scale of the destruction.

Believe me, considering Israels capabilities these are surgical strikes. They could have flattened all of Beirut by now if that was their goal. Perhaps when the civilians heed the warnings to stay away from Hezbollah hideouts and bases there will be fewer deaths of innocents. Even more so once Hezbollah stops hiding behind women and children.

Too bad Lebanon decided to let Hezbollah run half the country, sucks to be them.

 

[webfusion]

FireGarden thrusts his chin out there:

Anybody who believes the IDF is disconnected from reality.

FireGarden, my man, here's some new fake numbers for you to digest:

• * The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health reported early Saturday that at least 396 people have been killed and over 1,350 injured since the beginning of operations against Hezbollah.
  According to the ministry, fatalities include 20 Lebanese soldiers and six Hezbollah gunmen.

Yep, six.
That's direct from "the source" -- the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

However, just in the past few days or so ----
IDF troops have destroyed Hezbollah headquarters, six missile launchers, missile storage facilities, weapon storage facilities, communication lines, and over 40 rocket launch sites.

But only six Hezbollah men are fatalities?

Sorry, that's just not credible.
You, FireGarden, are not credible, for denying that the IDF is acting (more or less) responsibly and carefully.

From IDF CHief of Staff Dan Halutz:

"Our fighting against Hezbollah is taking a heavy toll on [the group]," the army chief said. "The fact is that they avoid publishing the [true] number of their losses and the names of their men that were killed, and the fact that they feed the press dishonest information [shows] they are disconnected from reality."

 

[FireGarden]

IDF troops have destroyed Hezbollah headquarters, six missile launchers, missile storage facilities, weapon storage facilities, communication lines, and over 40 rocket launch sites.

All of these are either
(1) buildings which Hezbollah would be really dumb to stay inside.
(2) Other kinds of buildings/areas that Hezbollah could run from but not protect.

Leaving
"six missile launchers"
And quite frankly, with warning over walkie-talkies telling of them sightings of Israeli planes, they could leave these behind too. Israel only knows where the launch site is when they see the plume of smoke following the rocket. I doubt Hezbollah stay behind long enough for Israel to hit them at those places.

But only six Hezbollah men are fatalities?

Sorry, that's just not credible.

It is credible.
Hezbollah are dying in fighting in the south, not in the infrastructure destruction in the rest of Lebanon.



And the civilian toll is credible because Israel didn't just bomb empty Hezbollah headquarters. They bombed the neighbourhood of those headquarters. (Not to mention roads, power stations, petrol stations, paper-factory, a milk-factory! and a food warehouse!, trucks, mini-buses, etc, etc....)

Israel bombing breaks humanitarian law - UN official

"It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses," Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, told reporters as he toured the shattered Haret Hreik district. "It makes it a violation of humanitarian law."

I saw it on the BBC. Instead of standing still, Egeland walked and talked -- forcing the camera to pan along the destruction behind him.

Believe me, considering Israels capabilities these are surgical strikes.

Surgical? Only if you can describe being put through a meat-grinder as "surgical".

And this is a Beirut neighbourhood. Imagine the south.

Egeland said between half a million and a million people were in need of international assistance in Lebanon, but delivering aid required safe access. "So far Israel is not giving us access," he said.

[...] "We're particularly worried for this area of Beirut and for the southern part of the country," he said.

"There are wounded who do not get sufficient treatment. There are people who do not have safe drinking water. There are, first and foremost, tens of thousands of people who are now being besieged, or in areas (of) cross fire," he said.

"It is costing too many lives and it will not lead to a solution in the south. There is no military solution to these things, it is only a political solution."

More on the milk factory:

Caritas Lebanon slams milk factory attack

"The Israeli Army is making the situation even worse for Lebanese civilians by targeting warehouses and factories," said Caritas. "In fact, food storage houses in particular have become the target of Israeli reprisals. A big milk factory in the Bekaa region called 'Liban Lait' was completely burned and destroyed by direct attacks from the Israeli Air Force. A food storehouse called 'TransMed' in Choueifate, in Beirut's southern suburbs, was totally destroyed."

 

[zenith-nadir]

They bombed the neighbourhood of those headquarters.

A valid target is the Haret Hreik district which is the stronghold of Hezbollah for all of Lebanon. Hezbollah has it's HQ there, it's TV station is there, it's radio station is there and it is home to the leaders of Hezbollah including Nasralla.

Sadly the Lebanese government allowed Hezbollah to deliberatly intermingle it's combatants across Lebanon with civilians, it knew about this and did nothing. This created a situation in which any attack against Hezbollah - even with the most precise weapons available - entails an excessive number of civilian casualties.

(Not to mention roads, power stations, petrol stations, paper-factory, a milk-factory! and a food warehouse!, trucks, mini-buses, etc, etc....)

Let's call a spade a spade FireGarden. No one want's to bomb Lebanon. The IDF isn't doing this cuz it's bored of bombing Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades or the Popular Resistance Committees. The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part of, has - at it's highest levels - supported Hezbollah. Here are my citiations to that fact:

• November 07, 2001 - Lebanon will not freeze Hezbollah's assets as it is a resistance movement instead of a terrorist organization, Finance Minister Fouad Siniora said Tuesday.
• 29, July, 2005 - Lebanon’s new government defended the right of Hezbollah guerrillas to resist Israel...“The government considers the resistance a natural and honest expression of the Lebanese people’s national rights to liberate their land and defend their honor against Israeli aggression and threats,”
• April 23, 2006 - SINIORA: We see it, in Lebanon, differently, that Hezbollah is a Lebanese party, which was quite effective in empowering the Lebanese.

So this myth that the Lebanese government is powerless to stop Hezbollah doesn't jive with the documented support the Lebanese government gave Hezbollah. Sadly Lebanon is now paying the price for that support of Hezbollah since Hezbollah decided for all of Lebanon to cross into Israel and take hostages. Sorry but that is the black and white of it.

 

[Skeptic]

Firegarden, you're acting as if the Arabs claiming enormous number of civilians dead due to "the zionist enemy's inablity to reach our brave fighters", "their loss of control from their cowardly defeats against our warrior", etc., etc., is something new. In fact, it is a well-known and oft-used strategy.

Remember the 2002 "Jenin Massacre"?

Let me quote Sever Flotsker (Sp??? I'm translating phonetically from the Hebrew) from two days ago in Yediot Aharonot:

As we recall, the world's leading newspapers described the Jenin battle of 2002 as a massacre of hundreds of innocent Palestinians by the israeli storm troopers [kalgasim--perhaps "huns" or "vandals" is a better translation]. On the TV screen appeared Palestinian 'eye witnesses' as evidence for 'horrible crimes' which never occured. Reporters photographed themselves next to a few destroyed houses as 'evidence' as israel destroying an entire city. It took months of work to prove the falsity of these accusations...

...the same is happening today. The foreign press is using the same close-up photos [e.g., so that the reader will not see the houses nearby were not hurt--Sk.] of the bombed houses in one neighborhood in southern Beirut as evidence for Beirut being destroyed like Dresden.

The truth is that until now [two days ago] 360 Lebanese were killed, about half of them, contrary to Lebanese claims, Hizbullah fighters. After a week of bombing, these are numbers that show a low-level war. There is no "destruction of Lebanon" in the same way that there was no "Jenin massacre".

While I am not arguing that Flotsker's data is necessarily without mistakes, surely relying on Arab reports, like you do, claiming that "all but 14" of those killed in Lebanon being civilians--reports that, incidentally, directly contradict the rather opposite claims from Hizbullah about how their brave fighters are defeating the cowardly zionist enemy in pitched battles (it could be one or the other, but not both)--is, to put it no stronger than this, premature.

Why don't you wait? Let us wait, say, until a month after the conflict ends, and then see if the reports about the "indiscriminate bombing", etc., etc., are accurate... or if they turn out to be as accurate as the reports about the "Jenin massacre", the "murder" of Muhammad al-Durah, the "deliberate killing" of Rachel Corrie, the "targeting of journalists", and many, many other canards the Arabs have invented, repeatedly, in their propaganda war against the jews.


P.S.

Not to mention the fact that, rather often, the reports about all the dead innocent civilians originate--sometimes indirectly (e.g., the BBC using a report prepared by Hizbullah supporters)--from the same people for whom the genocide of the jews is a holy purpose and their ultimate life's goal. Then again, perhaps their talk of massacres and genocides should be taken seriously precisely because of this reason. As Churchill said to Roosevelt after Hitler complained on German radio that the bombing of Rome by the allies is "a war crime", "we should take such claims very seriously. It's certainly an expert's opinion."

I'm certainly not claiming that you are supporting such a goal, of course, but it puzzles me that you could take news reports from people who support such goals seriously. Isn't that a bit like taking Goebbles' claims seriously?

 

[FireGarden]

While I am not arguing that Flotsker's data is necessarily without mistakes, surely relying on Arab reports, like you do, ...

I rely on the press of the whole world. I've even quoted Haaretz in this thread.

Israel kept the press out of Jenin. They have failed to control the press in Lebanon. The body count is accurate and based on bodies in trucks. The reported proportion of dead children is based on the same stack of bodies.

These have been seen by the world press. This is not Arab lies. UK Forign minister Kim Howells has seen the destruction. UN's Jan Egeland has seen the destruction. First hand.

on the "all but 14" of those killed in Lebanon being civilians--reports that, incidentally, directly contradict the rather opposite claims from Hizbullah about how their brave fighters are defeating the cowardly zionist enemy in pitched battles

The "only 14" dates from July 18, as my signature still states. The current deaths amongst Hezbollah are from fighting in the south in "pitched battles" that have killed Israeli soldiers. I heard 6 died yesterday.

Few Hezbollah were killed by the airstrikes that wrecked Lebanon.

Let us wait, say, until a month after the conflict ends, and then see if the reports about the "indiscriminate bombing", etc., etc.,

Let us wait?
Israel is STILL bombing Lebanon.

No, we should NOT wait.
Israel must stop acting like a mad dog.

if they turn out to be as accurate as the reports about the "Jenin massacre", the "murder" of Muhammad al-Durah, the "deliberate killing" of Rachel Corrie, the "targeting of journalists", and many, many other canarads the Arabs have invented, repeatedly, in their propaganda war against the jews.

I don't know what they tell you in Israel, but these are not regarded as lies in Britain. Especially the death of James Miller.

Miller's family push for prosecution

The family of James Miller today called on the UK government to ensure his killer is prosecuted after an inquest into the British journalist's death concluded he had been murdered.

[...] A 10-man jury at St Pancras coroner's court, London, ruled that the award-winning documentary maker was killed unlawfully when he died from a single bullet wound in Gaza in May 2003, finding that he had been "murdered".

Yes, the family has to push American poodle to take action, but an inquest has not dismissed it as "Arab lies". Quite the contrary.

I'm certainly not claiming that you are supporting such a goal, of course, but it puzzles me that you could take news reports from people who support such goals seriously.

All the world's press is either anti-semitic or conned or controlled by Arabs?

That's your argument?

I have linked to articles from Ireland to Australia. You want me to limit my reading to IDF reports? No chance!

 

[WildCat]

Surgical? Only if you can describe being put through a meat-grinder as "surgical".

And this is a Beirut neighbourhood. Imagine the south.

Cry me a river... sorry but there is a price to be paid for supporting terrorists as Lebanon is finding out in this late hour. If it was up to me I would keep it up until Hezbollah sues for peace, unconditionally. And the Lebanese gov't disarms the militia as they have been charged to do per the UN..

 

[WildCat]

Israel kept the press out of Jenin. They have failed to control the press in Lebanon. The body count is accurate and based on bodies in trucks. The reported proportion of dead children is based on the same stack of bodies.

And please inform us of the methodology the press uses to distinguish a dead Hezbollah terrorist from a civilian.

 

[DreadNiK]

And I suppose all these different news organisations count the bodies themselves? Rather than relying on one of a few possible sources?

 

[Skeptic]

These have been seen by the world press. This is not Arab lies.

You miss the point. The point is not that you got all these claims are from Arab sources, but that Arabs propaganda had been experts in manipulating the world press. The "Jenin Massacre" was widely reported everywhere as fact, including many non-Arabs papers, but was nevertheless an Arab propaganda lie.

Israel kept the press out of Jenin

Are you suggesting that there was a "Jenin massacre"? If so, we part ways, since it shows that you're, quite simply, a sucker.

Anyway, "seeing with his own eyes" is not proof one cannot be manipulated. There is a state-run museums in North Korea where you can "see with your own eyes" how the evil imperialist Americans attacked the peace-loving country for no reason, but that hardly makes it the most realiable reports. The point is not whether there is bomb damage--of course there is--but whether it is an attempt to destroy Lebanon or indiscriminate bombming of civilians.

Seeing "with your own eyes" that a bomb was in fact dropped on a building doesn't answer the question of whether or not it was used by Hizbullah, for example.

Let us wait?
Israel is STILL bombing Lebanon.

So you're going to believe anything bad about it "as long as israel is still bombing Lebanon"? Suppose tomorrow the Hizbullah claims israel killed 100,000 Lebanese babies. Would you support that claim as credible, at least tentatively, "as long as israel is still bombing Lebanon"?

I fail to see the relation between the fact that "israel is still bombing Lebanon" and whether or not the claims made about it in the world press are true or credible. As Tolstoy put it in a totally different context, "even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six."

Besides, Hizbullah is still bombing israel, but that hardly means you'd believe me if I claimed Nasrallah drank the blood of jewish babies this morning, would it--or that the fact that Hizbullah is "still bombing israel" is in itself any evidence for that claim?

I don't know what they tell you in Israel, but these are not regarded as lies in Britain.

Naturalisch; the "chatteting classes" in Britian are, almost to a man, viciously anti-israeli for various reasons, and likely to believe everything they're told about it.

But whether or not they're "regarded as lies in Britian", they're obvious and crude lies deliberately spread by Palestinian propaganda. It's no evidence for propagana's truth that it was successful.

All the world's press is either anti-semitic or conned or controlled by Arabs?

Anti-semitic--not necessarily, conned by Arabs--closer to the truth; the Arabs are very good at manipulating the press with made-up horror stories, and the press is very good at "if it bleeds, it leads" pictures.

This, however, is more in the realm of my educated guess as to explaining why newspapers report inaccurately about israel. Even if my guess here is wrong, it doesn't deny the fact that they do.

Once more, numerous newspapers--

from Ireland to Australia.

--had also reported numerous other lies about israel, from the "Jenin massacre" to the "murder" of Rachel Corrie, but that hardly makes them true. I fail to see why you consider these reports more credible.

The question is not the quantity of the reports, but their quality which is in question. I could just as easily find you articles, "form Ireland to Australia", which claim UFOs abduct people and Sylvia Browne is really psychic.

 

[webfusion]

FireGarden continues:

Let us wait?
Israel is STILL bombing Lebanon.

No, we should NOT wait.
Israel must stop acting like a mad dog.

Israel is at war. It will continue to fight against a brutal and implacable enemy, until such time as it achieves a victory ------ and that victory involves two things, essentially (same as in Gaza, which is concurrent to the events of Lebanon). First, the end of rocket attacks upon Israel. Second, the release of 3 hostages.

From the news today:
In the town of Marjayun, about five miles (8 km) from the border, cars packed with people waving white flags fled north.

They were not strafed, they were not bombed.


Also in the news:
Two people were killed and several others were wounded as ten Katyusha rockets slammed into Haifa and its suburbs Sunday morning.

A man was killed in Haifa when rocket shrapnel hit his vehicle while he was driving along a main road in Haifa. A second person was killed when a rocket hit a carpentry shop in a suburb of Haifa.


One thing you keep overlooking, FireGarden.
Hezbollah started this war. Hezbollah is STILL bombing Israel.
Israel will finish it. Bow Wow.

 

[zenith-nadir]

Israel kept the press out of Jenin.

Why? Because the press perpetuated a huge hoax on an international scale - it was called "the massacre of the 21st century". One could hear/read reports of the supposed Israeli atrocities in Jenin on NPR, CNN, the BBC, at the UN and elsewhere. It was amateur-hour propaganda, and everyone fell for "the massacre of the 21st century" until the truth came out that there was no massacre in Jenin. The official death toll was 56 Palestinians, the majority of them combatants, and 23 Israeli soldiers. That is why Israel kept the press out of Jenin, they didn't deserve the right to be there since they were peddling in propoganda that was documented to be 100% false.

Thursday, 18 April, 2002, 20:01 GMT 21:01 UK - BBC

A United Nations envoy has said that the devastation left by Israeli forces in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank is "horrific beyond belief".

Sound familiar?

Thursday, 18 April, 2002, 20:01 GMT 21:01 UK - BBC - (continued)

Palestinians claim hundreds of bodies are buried beneath the rubble, but Israel says the numbers of dead are far fewer. An independent forensic expert says evidence suggests that a massacre has taken place.

"Evidence suggests that a massacre has taken place."...sound familiar?

Thursday, 18 April, 2002, 20:01 GMT 21:01 UK - BBC - (continued)

Palestinian claims of an Israeli massacre in the camp have been denied, although British forensic expert Prof Derrick Pounder has said that the evidence points to large numbers of civilian dead.

Screw Israel's version of the story... they must be lying... I mean really, look at the the devastation left by Israeli forces, and the evidence "which points to large numbers of civilian dead."...sound vaguely familiar?

Well after the fog of war lifted it turns out that British forensic expert Prof Derrick Pounder, the UN and the BBC were peddling in demostrable propaganda for the Palestinians and Israel's version of the story was correct after all.

That is not to say that the media is always wrong...why that would be impossible....but the medias' track record in regards to Israeli military operations leads me to be highly sceptical of any initial reports - see: Lebanon.

The body count is accurate and based on bodies in trucks. The reported proportion of dead children is based on the same stack of bodies.

Which is tragic. But once again none of the 375 civlians - the official death toll provided by Lebanese authorities - are Hezbollah militants? Where are the dead Hezbollah militants from the past week and a half?

These have been seen by the world press. This is not Arab lies. UK Forign minister Kim Howells has seen the destruction. UN's Jan Egeland has seen the destruction. First hand.

Everyone saw the destruction in Jenin too...and still a huge hoax was perpetuated - a mere 4 years ago - by the UN, by NPR, CNN, the BBC, etc.

The "only 14" dates from July 18, as my signature still states. The current deaths amongst Hezbollah are from fighting in the south in "pitched battles" that have killed Israeli soldiers. I heard 6 died yesterday. Few Hezbollah were killed by the airstrikes that wrecked Lebanon.

If that is what you believe. I suspect far more Hezbollah militants have been killed than "only 14", "6" or "a few".

Israel must stop acting like a mad dog.

For six years Israel sat by and watched Syria and Iran arm Hezbollah. For six years Israel sat by and watched the government of Lebanon HELP Hezbollah - (cite #1, #2 and #3). It was Hezbollah that crossed into Israel and attacked the "mad dog" who, incase-Hezbollah-missed-it, bites back.

FireGarden your anger is misplaced, and that is what Hezbollah wants more than anything in the world. Hezbollah decided for all of Lebanon to cross into Israel and take hostages. It was Hezbollah that attacked the "mad dog" nextdoor. A pretty bad move if you ask me. Well after six years of sitting on their hands Israel decided - and rightfully so - that there is a price for Hezbollah's actions, and a price for supporting Hezbollah by the Lebanese government - (cite #1, #2 and #3) - sadly the Lebanese people are paying for it since Hezbollah deliberately intermingles it's combatants with civilians.

{edited to add}

Consider Hezbollah an abusive spouse who beats his wife, then when the police come to arrest the abusive spouse who-beats-his-wife the wife jumps in to defend the abusive spouse. IMO that is exactly the dynamic in Lebanon right now.

 

[FireGarden]

You miss the point. The point is not that you got all these claims are from Arab sources, but that Arabs propaganda had been experts in manipulating the world press. The "Jenin Massacre" was widely reported everywhere as fact, including many non-Arabs papers, but was nevertheless an Arab propaganda lie.

First of all, Skeptic, it's you who has missed the point. The press is in Lebanon, they were not in Jenin.

Second,

U.N. Jenin Report

The report doesn't move us forward in terms of establishing the truth," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "Its watered-down account of the very serious violations in Jenin exposes the risk of compiling a report without any first-hand information."

[...] Set up by a U.N. General Assembly resolution after the Secretary-General was forced by Israel's objections to disband a U.N. fact-finding mission, the report was collated from existing sources. The report was hampered still further when the government of Israel did not comply with the United Nation's request for information.



Summary of HRW Report

Human Rights Watch's research demonstrates that, during their incursion into the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes.

How many dead does it take to make it a massacre? Is massacre the only crime Israel is accused of in Jenin? Don't pretend that Israel came out of Jenin smelling of roses. That's probably only true in Israel and America.

Naturalisch; the "chatteting classes" in Britian are, almost to a man, viciously anti-israeli for various reasons, and likely to believe everything they're told about it.

The "chattering classes" reviewed evidence in court and reached a conclusion. But that doesn't count. They only criticise because they are anti-Israeli.

You're not going to win me over with that. I'm British.

The question is not the quantity of the reports, but their quality which is in question.

And you can only find quality in IDF reports? You said, "the Arabs are very good at manipulating the press with made-up horror stories." In doing so you only modify the old lie that has Israel/Jews running all the mainstream media. But all inovation is imitation. Tell the one about "It's OK for Arabs(Jews) to lie to non-Arabs(Jews)." Always the same lie, just the target changes.

A man was killed in Haifa when rocket shrapnel hit his vehicle while he was driving along a main road in Haifa. A second person was killed when a rocket hit a carpentry shop in a suburb of Haifa.

Awful acts of terror. Imagine blowing up cars on roads, without even knowing who's inside them. Except it's not awful when Israel does it.