Outside the Spectrum

   As I mentioned two days ago, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) targeted a convoy of civilian cars leaving an area the IDF told them to evacuate. The convoy was then struck by Israeli missiles and over a dozen were killed.

   You wouldn’t know this sad story if you simply watched CNN reports, but many in the world (including me) check Aljazeera and other Arab media outlets for information.

   Human Rights Watch has picked up on this story, demanding an explanation from the IDF (which is somewhat amusing, given that Israel stages some truly amazing whitewashes that it calls “investigations,” including the one regarding the shelling of a beach in Gaza that HRW castigated Israel for all of two weeks ago).

   What drew me to this story, though, is the “defense” of this action that the Israeli military offered. A cynic might suggest that it is truly demonic for a military to demand that some law-abiding people pack up and leave their homes so that the military can devastate an area, only to kill them as they flee. The truth is that what is really cynical is to do all that and then offer a defense of the action that blandly admits that Israel doesn’t give a rat’s ass about civilian casualties. The response in question: “Israel Air Force targeted an area near the city of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, used as launching grounds for missiles fired by Hezbollah terror organization at Israel. The IDF regrets civilian casualties while targeting the missile launching area.” (emphasis mine).

   Note the language. Israel doesn’t target guerrilla fighters; Israel targets areas. I suppose I must point out it is a war crime to target areas, blithely blowing up civilians without making any apparent effort to avoid doing so.

   But the story gets “curiouser and curiouser.” HRW interviewed a journalist, the UN, and witnesses and it turns out that there were two rockets fired at the convoy, apparently by helicopters. This was not Israel shelling “an area.” This wasn’t artillery fire that destroyed the convoy in the context of Israel shelling “an area.” These were two missiles fired from a helicopter, apparently, that targeted the convoy. The convoy was not weaving through an area being bombarded by the IDF, dodging shells. They were picked off.

   I am not waiting for Israel to investigate itself with the same probity it used in investigating the shelling of the beach in Gaza. Israel’s simple calculus is to kill several Lebanese or Palestinians for every casualty they suffer, even if they have to line them up against a wall and shoot them.

   It turns out that 20 people died in that attack, 9 of them children.