Amnesty Finds Hizbullah Guilty of War Crimes
17:54 Sep 14, '06 / 21 Elul 5766
by Hillel Fendel
The int'l rights organization Amnesty has released a report criticizing Hizbullah for “serious violations of int'l humanitarian law” and “deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects.”
During the month-long war Hizbullah initiated by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12, the terrorists fired nearly 4,000 Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns and cities, killing 41 civilians and 12 soldiers. Even Al-Jazeera noted with surprise that "Amnesty International [had] not issued a report accusing Hizbullah of war crimes" - until today (Thursday).
Earlier, Amnesty had issued a scathing report against Israel, saying it had committed war crimes by targeting Lebanese infrastructures during the war.
Today's report noted that Hizbullah's Katyushas are "rockets with warheads packed with thousands of metal ball bearings intended to maximize harm to people... Katyusha rockets cannot be aimed with accuracy, especially at long distances, and are therefore indiscriminate" and illegal.
The report did not address the oft-repeated charges by Israeli and media sources that Hizbullah had used Lebanese civilians as protection against Israeli attacks. A recent Human Rights Watch report even denied these charges outright, claiming to have "found no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack."
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz that this was "contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television."
The Amnesty report notes that it is "based on first-hand information from visits to Israel and Lebanon; interviews with dozens of victims; official statements; discussions with Israeli and Lebanese military and government officials, as well as senior Hizbullah officials; information from non-governmental groups; and media reports."
Despite the above, Amnesty notes in the report that it is still "conducting further research" into the charges that Hizbullah used the civilian population as a cover for its military activities. The organization says it "intends to address them separately."
Dershowitz says Amnesty is wrong in its accusations against Israel. "Israel committed no war crimes by attacking parts of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon," he wrote recently in The Jerusalem Post. "In fact, through restraint, Israel was able to minimize the number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, despite Hizbullah's best efforts to embed itself in population centers and to use civilians as human shields."
Dershowitz continues, "The total number of innocent Muslim civilians killed by Israeli weapons during a month of ferocious defensive warfare was a fraction of the number of innocent Muslims killed by other Muslims during that same period in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and other areas of Muslim-on-Muslim civil strife. Yet the deaths caused by Muslims received a fraction of the attention devoted to alleged Israeli 'crimes.' This lack of concern for Muslims by other Muslims - and the lack of focus by so-called human rights organizations on these deaths - is bigotry, pure and simple."
The last three sentences are exactly how I feel.
17:54 Sep 14, '06 / 21 Elul 5766
by Hillel Fendel
During the month-long war Hizbullah initiated by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12, the terrorists fired nearly 4,000 Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns and cities, killing 41 civilians and 12 soldiers. Even Al-Jazeera noted with surprise that "Amnesty International [had] not issued a report accusing Hizbullah of war crimes" - until today (Thursday).
Earlier, Amnesty had issued a scathing report against Israel, saying it had committed war crimes by targeting Lebanese infrastructures during the war.
Today's report noted that Hizbullah's Katyushas are "rockets with warheads packed with thousands of metal ball bearings intended to maximize harm to people... Katyusha rockets cannot be aimed with accuracy, especially at long distances, and are therefore indiscriminate" and illegal.
The report did not address the oft-repeated charges by Israeli and media sources that Hizbullah had used Lebanese civilians as protection against Israeli attacks. A recent Human Rights Watch report even denied these charges outright, claiming to have "found no cases in which Hizbullah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack."
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz that this was "contrary to what every newspaper in the world had reported and what everyone saw with their own eyes on television."
The Amnesty report notes that it is "based on first-hand information from visits to Israel and Lebanon; interviews with dozens of victims; official statements; discussions with Israeli and Lebanese military and government officials, as well as senior Hizbullah officials; information from non-governmental groups; and media reports."
Despite the above, Amnesty notes in the report that it is still "conducting further research" into the charges that Hizbullah used the civilian population as a cover for its military activities. The organization says it "intends to address them separately."
Dershowitz says Amnesty is wrong in its accusations against Israel. "Israel committed no war crimes by attacking parts of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon," he wrote recently in The Jerusalem Post. "In fact, through restraint, Israel was able to minimize the number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, despite Hizbullah's best efforts to embed itself in population centers and to use civilians as human shields."
Dershowitz continues, "The total number of innocent Muslim civilians killed by Israeli weapons during a month of ferocious defensive warfare was a fraction of the number of innocent Muslims killed by other Muslims during that same period in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and other areas of Muslim-on-Muslim civil strife. Yet the deaths caused by Muslims received a fraction of the attention devoted to alleged Israeli 'crimes.' This lack of concern for Muslims by other Muslims - and the lack of focus by so-called human rights organizations on these deaths - is bigotry, pure and simple."
The last three sentences are exactly how I feel.
lain EnglishExact phraseAny of these words 
