Israel did practice collective punishment (see below for documentation) against the Shiite Muslim Lebanese. The evidence points overwhelmingly to this conclusion. So why couldn't Venezuelan prime minister Hugo Chavez simply have lamented this fact and called on international justice or courts to punish Israeli officials for their conduct? Instead he brought up today, during a visit to Beijing, the absurd H comparison, playing entirely into the 'Israel as victim' PR strategy that Israel uses on its own population and on American Jews to generate support for aggressive war and brutal occupation.
Visiting Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has denounced Israel's recent attacks on Lebanon as "genocide," likening its action to war crimes committed by Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
"Israel often criticizes Hitler ... but they have done the same thing, perhaps even worse," Chavez told reporters Friday in a briefing during his six-day visit to China.
Denouncing the "fascist attitudes" of Israel, he said: "What has happened was a genocide. They must be brought in front of an international tribunal."
http://news.yahoo.com/...
For those of you not convinced of Hitler's unmatchable evil and the absurdity of Chavez's comparison, here are the numbers of civilians killed (from wikipedia's WWII casualties page) by the four leading protagonists of World War II:
Germany: 20 million
Japan: 12 million
USSR: 1.8 million
USA: 750,000
In absurdly sharp contrast, Israel killed 743 Lebanese civilians, while Hezbollah killed 39 Israeli civilians.
So get ready for a couple days of Israel-friendly Chavez-bashing on the mainstream media. Coverage that will paper over the great evil that has been done by Israel to Lebanon in recent weeks.
A week ago Chavez had expressed himself better on the same matter, during a visit to Iran:
"The Israeli elite repeatedly criticize Hitler's actions against the Jews, and indeed Hitler's actions must be criticized, not just against the Jews but against the world," Chavez said during his visit to Iran, adding: "It's also fascism what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people ... terrorism and fascism."
Venezuela has both Arab immigrant and Jewish communities, and officials have insisted the government will continue to fully respect the Jewish community despite its strong opposition to Israel's war in Lebanon.
http://www.haaretz.com/...
But even here the use of the word "fascism" is just inflammatory and doesn't advance a rational approach to the conflicts in the Middle East. Any bad thing or policy can be called fascist because the word has little to no meaning content. But the word does inflame passions by bringing up images of Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler. I don't understand why such a useless word is not simply left alone.
"Terrorism" is nearly as bad as 'fascism' but it is a word the neo-cons in both Israel and the U.S. employ to advance their militarist approach to the Middle East. So it is right to throw it back in their faces when the word fits. And, just in terms of the recent invasion of Lebanon, which I've looked at a great deal over the last month and a half, Israel's attacks on civilian areas qualify it as one nation (of many) that practices terrorism.
Israel's Collective Punishment of Lebanon's Shiite Muslims
Start with "Lebanon village now wasteland after war" by the AP's Todd Pittman. Essential reading, it begins as follows:
AITA AL-SHAAB, Lebanon - First came the tanks. Then came the warplanes. Then came the bulldozers. A monthlong Israeli assault and weeks of fierce ground combat between Israel and Hezbollah fighters have reduced this once-vibrant tobacco farming village and Hezbollah stronghold to a wasteland of rubble, scorched trees and unexploded bombs -- a snapshot of the destruction the 34-day war wrought across southern Lebanon.
In this village from which Hezbollah guerrillas launched the July 12 raid into Israel that ignited the war, there is no electricity, no running water and no talk of reconstruction. Most of Aita al-Shaab will likely have to be torn down to be rebuilt. ...
Several dozen hilltop homes were wiped away completely, razed by Israeli bulldozers, residents said. Not far from the town square, the swath where homes once stood was reduced to flattened piles of smashed furniture and toys, twisted iron girders and broken cement. Already, newly hung yellow Hezbollah banners fly from bent iron electricity poles.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
There were also several statements by Israeli ministers that threatened collective punishment:
Israel's army chief Brig. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that "nothing is safe" in Lebanon and said Beirut itself -- particularly Hezbollah offices and residences -- would be a target.
http://www.cbsnews.com/....
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of Israel's Northern Command, said he has "comprehensive plans" to battle Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, not just in its southern stronghold.
"This affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon," Adam said. "Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate -- not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of Hezbollah posts."
Earlier, Israel's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, told Israel's Channel 10, "If the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years."
http://www.cnn.com/....
A senior Israeli Air Force official announced on Israeli Army Radio that "Army chief of staff Dan Halutz has given the order to the air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the Dahaya district [of Beirut] in response to every [Hezbollah] rocket fired on Haifa."
http://www.agrnews.org/....
Human Rights Watch has also issued a report condemning Israeli conduct:
Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians
Some Israeli Attacks Amount to War Crimes
(Beirut, August 3, 2006) - Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in report released today. The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.
The 50-page report, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," analyzes almost two dozen cases of Israeli air and artillery attacks on civilian homes and vehicles. Of the 153 dead civilians named in the report, 63 are children. More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire since fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians.
"The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare."
The report is based on extensive interviews with victims and witnesses of attacks, visits to some blast sites, and information obtained from hospitals, humanitarian groups, security forces and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, assessing the weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Human Rights Watch researchers found numerous cases in which the IDF launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians.
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in the hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their 10 children and the family's Sri Lankan maid.
On July 16, an Israeli aircraft fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing 11 members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five and seven.
The Israeli government has blamed Hezbollah for the high civilian casualty toll in Lebanon, insisting that Hezbollah fighters have hidden themselves and their weapons among the civilian population. However, in none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in the report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah was operating in or around the area during or prior to the attack.
"Hezbollah fighters must not hide behind civilians - that's an absolute - but the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong," Roth said. "In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around."
Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilians and combatants, arguing that only people associated with Hezbollah remain in southern Lebanon, so all are legitimate targets of attack. Under international law, however, only civilians directly participating in hostilities lose their immunity from attack. Many civilians have been unable to flee because they are sick, wounded, do not have the means to leave or are providing essential civil services.
http://www.hrw.org/...
Please donate to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at www.ifrc.org, to assist Lebanon.