'Hizbullah committing war crimes'

[barb162]

Aug. 5, 2006 18:16 | Updated Aug. 5, 2006 19:58
'Hizbullah committing war crimes'
By JPOST.COM STAFF


Hizbullah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

"Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war."

"Most of the attacks appear to have been directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools, homes and businesses," the humanitarian organization's website stated.

snip
"Under international humanitarian law - also known as the laws of war - parties to an armed conflict must not make the civilian population the object of attack, or fire indiscriminately into civilian areas. Nor can they launch attacks that they know will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects that exceeds the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Such attacks constitute war crimes," the site explained.

snip
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525810863&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[jonnyblitz]

1. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2437885

[Tom Joad]

2. Israel is killing 10 times more people, and really destroying a whole

nation. Surprised you left out the parts about HRW reports on Israel, and why it must stop its crimes. Maybe not surprised you left that out, or that Jerusalem Post left that out.

I still believe that an immediate cease fire is needed.

[barb162]

4. Others around here have posted the HRW stuff about 500 times

or so, havent they? Or a thousand times. Whatever... I stopped counting after about 5 times

[breakaleg]

16. what point are you making? that they should stop posting it?

I think it gets posted more often because it's the greater crime, and while lots of people happliy call for Hezbollah to put down their arms, no one seems to be asking Israel to do the same. I guess they have some divine right to invade another country.

[Violet_Crumble]

19. And do you agree with what hrw says?

Y'know, that not only Hezbollah are committing war crimes, but that Israel with its indiscriminate attacks on civiliand is also committing war crimes?

[Tom Joad]

22. Good question. But don't expect an answer.

[Violet_Crumble]

30. I don't. But I already know what the answer would be...

Comes from not one word of criticism of Israel ever having appeared, and also to do with the fact that a fair bit of time was spent trying to argue that Lebanese civilians aren't really *innocent civilians* in the Dershy thread :)

[barb162]

6. Not true at all Tom. Take a look at the maps

[Tom Joad]

15. Okay, only destroying half a country. Only 40% are refugees.

I was so wrong.

If there were a simlar attack on the U.S., and everything East of Denver was under attack, and every bridge destroyed, 70,000 civilians killed (Lebanon has nearly a thousand dead, but it is a much smaller country, so a comparable figure would be 70,000 if this happen in the US) , food and water not getting to those in need, 70 million refugees (nearly 1/5 our population, less than the figure for the number of Lebanon refugees, 800,000 refugees, which is much more than 1/5 of their population), then it would not be exactly accurate to say the whole of the United States is being destroyed.

[barb162]

20. Are you counting Hizbollah dead as civilians or terrorists?

I count them as terrorists per the US State Dept Definition
"Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (as of October 5, 2001" item 9 Hizbollah (Party of God)

[Tom Joad]

21. Barb, many of the dead are children. Others, like the farmworkers

killed this week were civilians.

I know the State Dept calls Hizbollah a terror group. It also called the African National Congress a terror group. I am not equating the two, but pointing out the skewed politics of the State Department. Why doesn' the State Dept. label the Israeli military as a terror organization, when it is very clear, to most of the world, what it is doing to the people of Lebanon and Gaza.

Starving kids. It ain't right. It just ain't right.

[barb162]

24. So what about "Hizbollah" being civilian v. terrorist

because I think that body count goes WAY down when you start pulling "Hizbollah" out of the numbers.

Kids are another story, a very sad story for everyone, Israel and Lebanon and so are civilians on both sides. But "Hizbollah" terrorists aren't civilians in my book; I use the State Dept definition.

[Tom Joad]

3. Why not call for an immediate cease-fire by all ? Why does Bush/Olmert

oppose that? why does Israel insist on keeping this up?

[barb162]

5. Other news stories have a French/ US resolution

and I posted that here in I/P. WHy does Hez keep calling for more fighting including hitting Tel Aviv?

[Double T]

7. So they can 'flatten more villages', occupy more Lebanese land......

and kill more of the opposition including innocents. Half-baked truths are ALWAYS a problem with neocon regimes.

[barb162]

9. Maybe UN troops will be "occupying" that land as peacekeepers to

[Double T]

12. The UN has already attempted that move ONLY to become.......

the target of Israel's air attacks leading to the deaths of four UN peacekeepers. Until Israel can admit that it is ALSO WRONG, there can be no peace.

[barb162]

14. I would like to see ARMED UN troops this time

not watchers/ observers, etal

[barb162]

10. Does Nasrallah wants to flatten Tel Aviv

There's 3 million people in Tel Aviv

[Double T]

13. .....as I said, Israel needs to understand it is ALSO WRONG.......

and call for a ceasefire IMMEDIATELY. Escalation and broadening of the war by Israel is certainly NOT the answer. Israel's attacks on Southern Beirut resulted in the counter attack threat, and so it goes.......

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[applegrove]

11. And while Hizbollah is at it..maybe they stop hiding under children &

civilians and put on the really big boy pants... and hide somewhere where families are not living? Maybe... 500 yars away from villages at the closest... you know..smart bombs and all. That would do it. 500 Meters from the villages.

Oh dang! The whole point of hiding under a town is to keep them, Hizbollah, from getting hurt. What was I thinking!!:sarcasm:

[Violet_Crumble]

17. Hiding under children?

What do they do? Give the kids rides on their shoulders? ;)

Methinks you don't really understand much about guerilla warfare....

[applegrove]

26. The Hizbollah bunkers and arms are hidden under towns! Or farms.

basically under and amid families

:yoiks:

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Children are now towns and farms?

First you say they're hiding under children and then change the tune. Maybe a bit of lightening up on the hyperbole is in order...

[applegrove]

32. Hizbollah is hiding under families. And amid them. They could put

their bunkers 500 yards away from all towns and civilian areas. But they choose not to.

Cause they are terrorists.

Pretend that isn't the case if it pleases you.

[Violet_Crumble]

18. Is anyone else having problems with the HRW site?

Over the past few days the site seems to be down whenever I try to get to it. I'd really like to read the longarse report on Israel and Lebanon where hrw points out that war crimes are being committed by both Hezbollah and the IDF :)

[Tom Joad]

23. "Israeli air strike kills 33 farmworkers" All in a day's work.

Israel broadened its attacks on Lebanon on Friday, severing its last significant link to the outside world in a series of air strikes on Christian areas and killing at least 33 farmworkers in the north of the country.

Aid workers said the destruction of bridges on the last main road connecting Lebanon to Syria would seriously hamper efforts to provide 900,000 displaced Lebanese with relief. The road was “Lebanon’s umbilical cord” on which aid agencies have depended for moving supplies and staff.

Lebanon is also facing an acute shortage of fuel with only a matter of days before it runs out altogether and the lights go out, Mohamed Fneich, the energy minister, told the Financial Times.

Israel said it was checking reports from Lebanese officials that a site where it believed weapons were being loaded, and had bombed, was actually a farm storehouse where mostly Syrian Kurds were loading plums and peaches.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/083b33fe-23df-11db-ae89-0000779e2340.html

As much as the Bush Administration probably hates farmworkers in general, and the United Farm Workers here in California, I doubt if the 33 Kurdish peach workers were on the State Dept. list of terrorists.

[barb162]

25. I think it's tragic these Kurds were killed, just as I think Bedouin

women being killed by Hez rockets yesterday is tragic. I presume they are all innocent civilians

[Tom Joad]

27. i am sure they were. I don't believe civilians should be attacked, I also

believe there should be an immediate cease-fire. Unlike Olmert/Bush.

How about you Barb? Do you think a cease-fire will be premature at this time? Do you think Israel should continue its campaign to "eradicate", through military means, Hezbullah?

[davidinalameda]

28. they're terrorists; this is what they do

they target civilians

[SeaBob]

29. Killing

Two wrongs don't make a right. Both sides are killing innocents. Both sides must stop killing innocent people.