[Seree Zohar]

Some further insights:

1. Source: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/its_another_hezbollah_atrocity_opedcolumnists_john _podhoretz.htm

Re Kfar Qana: August 1, 2006 -- FORGIVE me if I find the general elite discussion of the horrible incident in Qana - in which an Israeli air strike apparently killed 57 civilians, the majority of them children - at the very least bizarrely ignorant and at the very worst simply despicable

Given the amount of coverage these past months of the Geneva Convention and its applicability to the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, you´d have expected the U.S. and European elites who profess their great love for the convention to rush to Israel´s defense: The Geneva Convention makes clear that the moral responsibility for the deaths at Qana belongs entirely to Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah has violated the most basic laws of war in its behavior.

Here´s the relevant language. It comes from Article 37 of Protocol 1, ratified in 1979: "It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy." It lists three types of perfidy; the third is "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status." And, by hiding in and launching missiles from Qana, Hezbollah was feigning civilian status and therefore resorting to perfidy.

This is why Hezbollah bears the specific responsibility for the Qana attack. A substantial number of rocket attacks against Israel (10 percent or more) were fired from trucks hidden inside the populated village. Spy footage released by Israel over the weekend tells the tale: It shows unmarked trucks with rockets hidden on them being driven in and out and around the streets of Qana in a deliberate effort to prevent any Israeli strikes.

Like a particularly malignant kind of parasite, Hezbollah weaved itself thoroughly into the limited infrastructure of Qana so that every person there would serve as a deterrent to an Israeli attack. It had good reason to know Israel might hesitate before ordering a bombing raid. Ten years ago, under a similar set of circumstances, Israel hit Qana and killed 100 civilians - an act that led to the suspension of a potent military campaign against Hezbollah

Israel did hesitate. It waited 17 days into the conflict before risking the assault. But since Israel´s war goal is the complete degradation if not total destruction of Hezbollah´s military capability, it could have hesitated no longer.

Questions are even being raised about whether the Israeli attack actually caused the deaths in question, since the building collapse that caused most of them came seven hours after the bombs fell. Only a naive person would assume that Hezbollah wouldn´t be willing to stage an atrocity for political effect.

Was the "incidental loss of civilian life" at Qana "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated"? I don´t see how any fair reading of the situation would find this to be the case. Qana was, for all intents and purposes, a missile base for Hezbollah, with something like 10 projectiles being fired a day at Israeli civilians for months, from inside its precincts.

If a missile battery is not a legitimate military target, there is no such thing as a legitimate military target.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com (Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. 08/01/06)
------------


http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/200...ilking-it.html


2. ABC News reports that Kfar Qana was hit just after 1 am, while Reuters reports that police said Qana was bombed at 1:30 am (2230 GMT on Saturday). The building containing civilians collapsed only some 7 hours later. Apparently the basement was a Hezbolla munitions store. Hezbolla, which uses humans as living shields, simply discounted the value of these shields in favor of their goal.

Additionally, it appears that many of the photoshots released from Qana have been staged in efforts to increase the atrocity-horror factor. EU Referendum documents how the same photographer team apparently duped the larger news services. This is highly reminiscent of a similar fiasco (in Arafat's time) known as the "Jenin massacre" of April 2002 -- which never was, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin_Massacre ) but it took the UN only hours to broadcast the effects of this nonexistent massacre, and months to apologize to Israel.

3. Things the world forgets: In seeking a <u>commencement point </u>of some kind for the current violence, and apropos <u>duplicity associated with Israel and directly involving the UN</u>, one would be hard pressed to answer the question of to whom, exactly, the peacekeepers on the Lebanese side of the border should advise of Hezbolla terrorist buildup when, as far back as mid 2000, Kofi Anan legitimized Hezbolla by meeting with Nasralla and thanking him – rather than the official Lebanon gov't – for ensuring law and order in south Lebanon! (see: handshake pic printed/broadcast in all major newspapers/media providers worldwide). The following link (short article) clearly shows that Israel has been drawn into this bout of violence as a long term eventuation of infighting among various Arab extremist groups trying to prove which of them really has control of Lebanon. http://www.meib.org/articles/0007_l2.htm For those who argue that Israel maintained a presence in south Lebanon for some 20 years, this was because neither Lebanon's gov't, nor the UN, were prepared to guarantee Israel a safe border. At no time whatsoever did Israel perceive or relate to south Lebanon as being, or ever becoming, part of Israel.
Note: The Shiite Lebanese Diaspora provides Hezbollah with a base for lucrative criminal activities, such as diamond smuggling in West Africa, cigarette smuggling in the United States, and drug trafficking in the triple frontier along the junction of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. By the end of the 1990s, funding from the Lebanese Diaspora had outstripped Iranian financing, estimated by Lebanese press reports to be around $10 million monthly. http://www.meib.org/articles/0402_ld.htm

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Originally posted by Seree Zohar:
Here´s the relevant language. It comes from Article 37 of Protocol 1, ratified in 1979: "It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy." It lists three types of perfidy; the third is "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status." And, by hiding in and launching missiles from Qana, Hezbollah was feigning civilian status and therefore resorting to perfidy.

I'm sorry, if you see a truck of armed men with rocket launcher rattling down the street, do you think they're civilians? No, of course not.

Bombs are designed to kill civilians. Full stop, end of story. If you do not want to kill any civilians, don't use bombs.

Military groups use cities to fight from because they have roads to drive around on and buildings to use for cover. Honorable combat? No, but modern armies gave up on the old idea of "honorable combat" a long time ago. Why do you think we have camouflage?

I can make an arguement that anything other than the leaders of both agrieved groups pistol dueling is "perfidy," but I doubt anyone would sign off on it, least of all the politicians who don't want to get anywhere near the killing themselves.

[Robert Meyer]

Kevin:
I can make an arguement that anything other than the leaders of both agrieved groups pistol dueling is "perfidy," but I doubt anyone would sign off on it, least of all the politicians who don't want to get anywhere near the killing themselves.

I've had a similar fantasy:

1. put Osama Bin Ladin and George W Bush on a desert island

2. give each a machete

3. tell them it's a duel to the death, but whoever wins will rule the world

4. one or the other wins, then

5. bomb the island

They're tough guys, they can handle it. Maybe both of them can get reincarnated as cockroaches.

Robert Meyer

[Mark Granier]

That's DISGUSTING Robert, a gross and perfidious insult to cockroaches!

[Daniel Haar]

Dan,

I agree that “anti-Semitism” has historically usually referred to anti-Jewish hatred. But it is a tricky term. According to Wikipedia , the term “anti-Semitism” was invented to describe the racial theories of Ernest Renan, who claimed that Aryan races were superior to Semitic ones, among others. He had a famous debate with the philosopher Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, in which Renan claimed that Arabs were incapable of developing science, and that Afghani was able to debate well because as an Afghan he was a member of an Aryan race (and not Semitic like the Arabs). Now of course when the term became more widespread, it was used to describe people who dislike Jews, mostly because Jews were the only sizeable population of Semitic peoples in Europe. However, the Arabs I know are quite conscious of the fact that they are also Semitic people (whether they have true Arabian, or Assyrian, Coptic, Chaldean, or Samaritan blood wouldn’t seem to matter on that point), and quite closely related to Jews. They find it sort of strange that the term anti-Semitic only means anti-Jewish. So really the question really, to me, is whether we should continue to use the word in the same way. Words change over time. Though I’ll grant you that anti-Semite rolls of the tongue more easily than “someone with anti-Jewish sentiments” or what you will. Perhaps it will stick. I just wanted say why I am not completely comfortable with the term as used today.

- Daniel

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

FWIW, my half-Palestinian friend in college was also ticked off by the term "Anti-Semitism." He'd said to me, "Excuse me, I'm a Semite. Most of the Jews you run into are of European ancestry, not Semitic." Of course you're not supposed to talk about that, but one of the basic rules of anthropology is "When two peoples meet, they may not always bleed, but they always breed."

The other trouble with Anti-Semitism is that one group gets a special term whereas everyone else has to make do with garden variety "prejudice." Well, women do have "misogyny" but even that has fallen out of fashion as a term in favor of the more egalitarian word "sexism."

[Dan Halberstein]

KAM, as it happens, your college buddy was wrong. he's likely also a big fan of that Koestler character as well, who insists Ashkenazim are all descended from the medieval Khazars -- not that it's a crucial point.

edited in: I just saw Zogby and Deshowitz arguing on CNN. If you don't know which is which, I'd swear Zogby was Jewish, which, in my world-view, is not surprising. And Amin Al Husseini -- Jerusalem's "mufti" of the 30s and 40s -- you would peg as a celt, most likely, with his red hair. Denial that Jews are semites is an odd attitude, not one you're "not supposed to talk about," just plain old crackpot stuff.

But to swap a story for a story: Back in the day, I took a side gig handling a newsletter for the ADC (Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee, the Arab equivalent of the Anti Defamation League.)

One woman asked why I wanted the job at all. I answered "because I don't like Anti Semitism." This met with blank stares all around. I think it took two or three beats for this to sink in. I got the gig, but I'm not sure anybody in that room got the bon mot to this day. Or, maybe they got it, but were pissed off that, at least in the abstract, we could be hated by the same people.

Of course, it's also possible to say that both I and some of the other people in the room, weren't semites at all, if we needed to be native speakers of a Semitic language to be a Semite. Conversely, if we needed to be sprung from such stock, we were all Semites.

I'm comfortable with the term "Anti-Semitism" as its currently used, unless we decide we need to break it into "Anti-Arabism" and "Anti-Judaism" for purposes of this debate.

As for the contention that Jews aren't semites: Kevin, the word of a college buddy is not scholarship. Put more effort into research and a little less into having something avant-garde and shocking to say.

Dan



[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited August 03, 2006).]

[Svein Olav Nyberg]

Never take sides when the sons of Abraham are fighting. Observe, yes. Judge, yes. But take sides and get entangled? No thanks!

As a brief judgement, I'd say that Israel was in the wrong when they went into Gaza for two mere kidnap victims, but that they are in the right when pursuing Hezb'allah in Lebanon. Lebanon can't both be at war and not at war with Israel, and if it ain't at war, it shouldn't have left Hezb'allah alone, far less into its government. So Israel has the right to treat this whole war as if it was Lebanon itself that had declared war, and I think that in some respects they are showing good restraint compared to what they could have done.

Not that I don't shudder at the loss of civilian life and despise the inherent collectivism of states and groups at war.

As for human shields ... look back to Gaza , where Israel is in the wrong.

But what has me wondering is why Hezb'allah chose to strike right now. If they expected this kind of response from Israel: What are their underlying motives? Could it be related to Iran's desire to acquire nukes? If they didn't expect this kind of response from Israel, what kind of honorable game do these soldiers hiding in their mothers dresses think they are playing?

------------------

--Svein Olav

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Dan,

Stating that some Jews are not ethnically very Semitic is hardly crackpot stuff. Between adoptions, conversion, intermarriage, and kids begat on the lefthand side of the bed, you can easily have someone whose percentage of actual ethnic Semitic ancestry is equivalent to my percentage of Irish ancestry--my father's father's father's father's father's father may have been Irish, but me? Apart from the name, not so much.

As for Zogby and Deshowitz, interestingly enough, I was watching the same segment on CNN. Only a portion, but what Zogby was saying sounded like good sense, but I thought Deshowitz sounded absolutely batshit. Ancestry-wise, judging from skin tone, facial features and baldness pattern, Deshowitz looked Eastern European Jewish, whereas Zogby looked like he comes from the Eastern Mediterranean.

As for red hair, you don't need to be a Celt to have that. There are plenty of red haired Italians (Titian red anyone?), Greeks, Jews, Egyptians and so on. Just went and looked up a picture of Amin Al Husseini. Celtic? Hardly. But judging by his facial features from the one grainy photo I found, I'd peg him as Turkish or somewhere in that neighborhood.

I have a degree in anthropology and human morphology is something of a hobby of mine.

[Mark Granier]

Well, women do have "misogyny"...

And men, lest we forget, have 'misandry'.


[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited August 03, 2006).]