There’s renewed tension on the Israel-Lebanon border. Yesterday the Times reported on recent rocket attacks by Hezbollah on northern Israel and stated the following (emphasis mine):
“That [2006] war was precipitated by a cross-border raid by the Hezbollah militia. The militants ambushed an Israeli Army patrol, killing eight soldiers and taking two captured soldiers into Lebanon. More than 1,000 Lebanese and more than 160 Israelis died in the war. The bodies of the two captured soldiers were returned in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah in July 2008.”
Odd. Back in 2006 the New York Times also stated that a Hezbollah raid across the Lebanon-Israel border that killed eight soldiers set off the Lebanon war of that year. But the Times misstated the number of Israeli soldiers killed, and corrected its report a day later. It said, "It was three, not eight."
Today it repeats the original mistake. Again, three soldiers, not eight, were killed in the ambush. Probably more important are the casualty figures in the story, which fail to note most Lebanese killed were civilians and most Israelis killed were soldiers.
Others were killed in the immediate aftermath.
To call it a lie, is also a lie.
Sure Witty, since when did you care about lying? There is no lie, however POW’s are permissible, kidnapping civilians and innocent people (Palestinians and Lebanese), than imprisoning them for years for colonial purposes is a much more egregious offense. In fact, it systemically undoes the country which practices such abuse – and in case you are still clueless, that is Israel.
Three soldiers were killed in the Hezbollah attack. The rest died when their state of the art Merkava tank was blown to bits when it went over a Hezbollah land mine as it crossed into Lebanon to exact revenge. One the delights on my trip to Lebanon the following year was seeing an entire Merkava tank that had been captured by Hezbollah and brought back to Beirut. It is a major attraction in its very popular museum of the 2006 war.
And, that is all you have to say about the resumption of unilateral shelling from Hezbollah positions in Lebanon? (Noone knows if Hezbollah claims responsibility.)
Is it a warning of consequences of escalating tension with Iran?
The Israeli press is screaming with threats to attack Iran, any day now, if not already yesterday.
Here is an interesting idea Witty, why don’t we tell Israel to get off Israeli Lebanon’s land and also stop stealing resources (water)? Than tell them that they should probably stop provocative flights over Lebanon which was prohibited by the cessation of conflict agreement. Stop sending agent provocateurs into Lebanon and spies. Sound like a good idea?
What’s your point? Is it any less wrong to kill three soldiers on the sovereign land of another country? How about to fire rockets in violation of a UN decision?
link to reuters.com
Anyway, five more soldiers were killed soon afterwards:
link to en.wikipedia.org
At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent crossed the border into Israeli territory and attacked two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, near Zar’it, killing three, injuring two, and capturing two Israeli soldiers (master sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and first sergeant Eldad Regev).[47][49] Five more Israeli soldiers were killed, and a tank was destroyed on the Lebanese side of the border during an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the two prisoners of war.
At the time it wasn’t clear if the Hezbollah attacked Israeli forces who had crossed into Lebanese territory or the Israelis were on their side of the border. Apparently the IDF regularly crossed into Lebanon. I don’t recall that this was ever clarified.
It’s very clear, except for people like yourself who only know whatever suits their opinion.
From the UN report:
“The crisis started when, around 9 a.m. local time, Hizbollah launched several rockets from Lebanese territory across the withdrawal line (the so-called Blue Line) towards Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions near the coast and in the area of the Israeli town of Zarit. In parallel, Hizbollah fighters crossed the Blue Line into Israel and attacked an IDF patrol. ”
link to domino.un.org
RE: “kill three soldiers on the sovereign land of another country”
MY COMMENT: If recall correctly, this occurred on the occupied territory known as the ‘Shebaa farms’. It did NOT occur on “the sovereign land” of Israel.
Learn to read or improve your memory. This was nowhere near the Shebaa Farms.
From the UN report:
“The crisis started when, around 9 a.m. local time, Hizbollah launched several rockets from Lebanese territory across the withdrawal line (the so-called Blue Line) towards Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions near the coast and in the area of the Israeli town of Zarit. In parallel, Hizbollah fighters crossed the Blue Line into Israel and attacked an IDF patrol. ”
link to domino.un.org
More help for dimwits like yourself:
Here’s where Zarit is
link to en.wikipedia.org
Here’s where Shebaa is
link to en.wikipedia.org
Why am I not surprised that people here don’t even know the facts?
Anyone else impressed at how people like carnas can ignore dozens upon dozens of UN resolutions and probably hundreds of UN reports, cumulatively, and zero right in on the handful that they can use while casting everything else aside because, hey, the UN is a bastion of anti-Semitism! Except for the stuff Israel can exploit to their advantage.
Primer for those new to the hasbara shell game: When a poster starts dropping into grade school bully tactics like calling people names like “dimwit?” You’re dealing with a hasbara poster. You could at least send us a link to the right wing blog that steered you here, carnas. We extended hospitality to you, are you afraid to do the same?
Good on ‘em. Slaughtering Israeli stormtroopers is a moral act. May there be many more.
Another genius. Jacqueline, when you have something constructive and factual to say, share it. Otherwise, spare us your “opinion”.
I used the UN report to point out a specific factual error, but don’t let the facts disturb you. Dimwit is a compliment given that liar would have been more appropriate.
Israel murders UN workers without compunction and with complete immunity. There’s probably a “report” about it.
impunity not immunity, but that’s in the ball park
Genius, this is about Hizballah and not the UN. Anyway, if you have any facts to back up your bs, please share. Here’s something you might understand:
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. ” (Daniel Patrick Moynihan)
Ignore the Israeli war crimes behind the curtain!
The question which have bothered many people – Why a resistance group would like to have a war with world’s fourth powerful army? Hizb’Allah is an Islamic group heavly involved in social works with a political and armed resistance wing. It has engaged Israeli occupation forces and its local Christian militia allies on Lebanese soil since 1990s. Its fighters have never crossed into Zionist occupied Palestinian land or send the so-called “suicide bombers” inside Israel.
In 2000, Hizb’Allah fighters forced the IOF to withdraw from Southern Lebanon after over 18 year of fighting. In 2006 during the 34-day Israeli invasion – Hizb’Allah fighters gave Israel its greatest military humiliation since 1948. The correct number of Israeli military loses have never been accepted by Israel. The conservative estimates are – 138 soldiers died, over 500 soldiers wounded out of the 30,000 Israeli soldiers who fought against less than 2000 Hizb’Allah fighters during the final days of the invasion. Hizb’Allah lost 49 fighters and 1300 Lebanese civilians. Israel lost 23-31 tanks, one F16, three gunships and over 500,000 Israelis rushed to interior of the country. An independent Israeli source in 2007, though reported that Israel lost 2,100 soldiers (??).
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
Unfortunately, you have no facts or evidence to back up what you say. Might as well go worship the flying spaghetti monster.
link to venganza.org
Carnas – the facts seem to be that Hezbollah (with primitive, inaccurate weapons) killed at least 55 Israelis, 43 of them civilians and 12 soldiers = 22% military. The claim that the “conservative estimates are 138 soldiers died” would mean that Hezbollah were over 76% on target.
Meanwhile, Israel had the very latest precision weapons and killed “at least 1,109 Lebanese deaths” (Sep 07 HRW estimate link to hrw.org
) of whom “the vast majority” were civilians (brow beaten by Israel, that figure was later stated as 900). A maximum of 19% military.
So how come Israel did worse than Hezbollah in this way, even according to the most favourable figures?
HRW managed to investigate almost half of these deaths “510 civilian lives and those of 51 Hezbollah combatants” (ie Israel managed only 9% military) and said “our research found that in all but a few of the cases of civilian deaths we investigated, Hezbollah fighters had not mixed with the civilian population or taken other actions to contribute to the targeting of a particular home or vehicle by Israeli forces.”
So how come Israel insists their enemies use “Human Shields”, something we know they’ve done a lot of themselves? Or can it be you don’t want to talk about what the observers tell us, or defend the claims of people who ought to be on trial for their actions?
I don’t understand why the movement to boycott Israeli academics would be gaining so much momentum. They’re so civil and courteous and contribute so much to open discussion after all.
There is evidence that Hezbollah wanted a prisoner exchange and didn’t expect the level of Israeli response.
Hezbollah had stated their intent to force a prisoner exchange that fell through in 2004. For this they had to take new prisoners first. But there is also a statement of Nasrallah that he took in account the possibility that Israel would use the event as a pretext to invade. So the attack could have been a choice: better now than later. Seymour Hersh had an article that left little doubt over the invasion being started with the Hezbollah attack as a pretext. link to newyorker.com