Sunday, July 30, 2006

Unfortunate consequences of war

The death of 50 Lebanese, including 21 children, in a single building destroyed by IAF rockets in Kana, south Lebanon, is an unfortunate consequence of war. These things unfortunately happen, hence prudent people in a war zone take precautions. For example, in Israel most buildings built since the 1980s have a "safe room" in each apartment or on every floor. Older buildings have a concrete reinforced basement. Hizbollah have fired an average of 100 rockets into northern Israel EVERY DAY for the past 18 days of the conflict, that started you may remember with the attack by Hizbollah across the Israeli border on July 12 and the accompanying bombardment of northern Israel with Katyushas. Although there have been 20 people killed in Israel by these rockets so far, all the casualties have been people who have been outside in the street, or in open buildings, such as a post office in Haifa, or in cars or buses. Even rockets have penetrated through the roofs of houses or apartments and killed people, such as the 15 year old Druse girl in a village in Galilee. But, so far no-one has even been injured who has taken shelter in a basement or safe room. People in Israel generally obey the rules given by the Home front command. Apart from that ca. one third or 300,000 people or more have moved south out of range of the current rockets, although Nasrallah keeps warning that he is going to up the ante and extend the range and hit central Israel.
About the building in Kana, no-one knows or is saying why this was chosen as a place to room over 100 people in a war zone in an unprotected building, where clearly the IAF could not have known that they had recently been moved there. On the IAF intelligence maps this building was apparently listed as a Hizbollah "asset." After dropping leaflets and given that this is a war zone, what is the IAF to do? They were firing rockets into Israel from the vicinity of that building. Knowing the brutality and lack of concern for human life, it would not surprise me if Hizbollah knew that these people, apparently mostly disabled children, had been moved into a likely Hizbollah target for the IAF. After all the PR value alone is worth it to them!
The statements of the Lebanese PM Seniora, that labeled Israeli actions as "war crimes," and his alignment with Hizbollah only serve to underline the cooperation that some elements of the Lebanese Army and Government have with Hizbollah. Until now we might have excused this because we were told they wanted to avoid another civil war, but the lack of cooperation, now by refusing to allow Sectry. of State Rice to go to Beirut to negotiate with him, is both disturbing and self-defeating. If they now claim they want an "immediate" ceasefire, then the surest way to prevent this is not to talk to the best intermediary there is. Israel is not going to take any other intermediary seriously, not France that identifies with Lebanon (although not Hizbollah), not the UN (that reflects the Arab position) and not the EU, that is hopelessly compromised.
I have taken an informal (non-scientific) poll of my friends and family and have found unanimity on one topic, in agreement with an article by Prof. Asa Kasher in the J'sam Post ('IDF may be morally justified in flattening terror strongholds' 28/7/06), all of us Israelis would prefer that the fortified villages of south Lebanon be pounded into the ground by aerial or artillery bombardment rather than send our boys in to risk their lives at night in the narrow alleyways.
We regard the action, in which 8 IDF soldiers died in an ambush in Bint Jbail, partly due to the IDF ethic of trying to save civilian lives, as being self-defeating. There are several reasons for this: 1. If it's "them or us," we prefer for it to be "them" who pay the ultimate price rather that our precious soldiers; 2. Even though the IDF tries to save civilian lives, none of our enemies or western observers give us any credit for that, on the contrary they lambaste us for the civilian casualties that do occur, so why go to such extremes (this does not mean that we should not avoid civilian casualties if our soldiers are not at risk!); 3. The IDF has dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave these villages several times and anyone with any sense knows that they shouldn't be there; 4. Hizbollah have had years to fortify and set up bunkers and ambushes for our troops, and we are sending them in there without the capability to avoid such pre-planned attacks; 5. Loss of life among the soldiers results in a loss of morale both in the IDF and in the home front, so it should be avoided if at all possible; 6. This is war, and we must fight to win, not to carry out moral games: "we are morally superior to you, even though we are dead!" 7. Everyone knows that Hizbollah gunmen hides among civilians, often their own families, and the Geneva rules of war allow attacks on them under these circumstances.
I don't care if the IDF uses flattening tactics like the NATO assault on Serbia, or pinpoint "laser painting" as suggested by one expert, or merely artillery shelling, but the unnecessary risking of soldier's lives in order to save enemy civilians must stop. Does anyone outside Serbia remember how many Serbian civilians were killed in the NATO attacks there, but everyone remembers that NATO won and the Serbian Army withdrew from Kossovo, and likewise with Grozny and the Russians, the US and Iraq and so on. So dear PM Olmert, DM Peretz and CoS Halutz, let's get on and do the dirty job of war and not be confused that we must risk our son's lives in order to spare our enemies lives.

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