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photo that damn hezbollah?

August 2, 2006 at · Filed under middle east, politics

hezbollah anti-aircraft

this article from the herald sun (a rupert murdoch owned newspaper) in australia  had the title of this post sans the question mark.

they article claims it demonstrates the immorality of the hezbollah, fighting from withing the civilian population. i saw this picture in other newspapers and on TV. 

i don't see how this specific picture proves anything. this is not an offensive weapon (like a katyusha rocket launcher), but rather a defensive anti-aircraft gun. since israel is conducting air raids on civilian neighborhoods i think it is legitimate for the hezbollah to deploy anti-aircraft guns among civilians.  

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Sami said,

August 2, 2006 @

you are completely right
but why should not hezbollah own strong weapons at same time that Israel own the miss distraction weapons?
also why we complain that Iran and Syria support hezbollah with the weapons at same time we don’t give any attention that USA send Pumps to Israel when Israel pumping the Kids in Lebanon?????

avneron said,

August 2, 2006 @

i think there is a big difference between iran sending money and weapons to an illegal militia with an agenda of destroying a neighboring country, to the US sending weapons to a democratic country.

the US is also selling weapons to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which i am not sure will prove to be a smart decision in the long term.

and israel is not “pumping” kids. it was a tragic mistake.

tsella said,

August 2, 2006 @

i disagree. hizbollah hides within civilian population, prompting the attacks by israeli planes. additionally, i think it is not a defensive weapon, but rather an offensive one against israeli planes, hidden within population, so it can be used to attack the planes with minimum or no repercussions.

avneron said,

August 2, 2006 @

israel is deploying patriots and anti-aircraft missiles in civilian population as well.

the only difference is that israel is not using artillery from within its cities.

Guy said,

August 2, 2006 @

The difference is that Hezbollah is not a nation but a miltia. If we talking about the Lebanese Army, then world reactions would be much greater and stronger. Hezbollah shouldn’t have any weapons.
Lebanon has suffered this fate of militias for over 50 years. The country, typical of most Middle Eastern nation, does not have a national cohesiveness nessecary for a nation to stick together. Those without a dictator are pretty shaky. Otherwise the miltias would have dissappeared years ago.
The truth is is that Hezbollah like all other so-called resistance organizations, depend on using the very populations that they have duped and/or threatened into supporting them. This is a given. They are of the population, the parents are proud, there is unity (but only if you are one of them) and life is starting to have some hope. But then the fairy tale ends when the terrorists actually start shooting. It is extremely hard to take the killing of regular people. But then again, the militia is those people. They give them their sons and daughters, support them in every way. The militia by it’s very nature hides and fights in the population. The people on the other hand, are screwed by both sides: the ones that sold them on a mirage of power and a holy mission and the ones that must respond to attack. But mostly I blame Hezbollah. Isn’t it nice that the Hezbollah leaders have volunteered all those poor peolple to be martyrs? Unfortunately, the people in South Lebanon and the packed, poor neighborhoods of Beirut are saturated in hate and are not receptive to other views. I can’t even imagine a person in South Lebanon saying ” Hey, what a minute, look what Hezbollah has gotten us into” He probably wouldn’t live to see another day.
Another thing, what is Hezbollah resisting? They live in a democratic country and have strong representation in the parliment. The answer lies in what they really are, a radical islamic organization. And what they want: the demolition of Isreal and all of it’s people and to help set upon a crusade to return Islam to some former glory. The one is an ignoble purpose and one doomed to fail. The other will never happen through violence, only education and love. Had Hezbollah only been brought to existence to help Shia with political, social, medical works and tried to be incorporated with the rest of Lebanon, then we wouldn’t be here today, talking about it.
Throw a rock at a bear and want to blame the bear for attacking you viciously? Come on now. I wail for all the dead everywhere that are getting killed. Particularly in the name of a religion. Hard to believe that in this time period, that we still have people on this planet that want religious empires and are willing to make all of us martyrs for their insane nightmares. The caring and educated peoples of Lebanon must continue to find a way to unite Lebanon and get rid of these damn miltias. Why would Isreal ever attack unprovoked? Think about it. Lebanon has absolutely nothing Isreal could want.

tsella said,

August 2, 2006 @

my point is another - i’m saying the cowardly wooses from hizballah place their anti-aircraft guns within the population not in order to guard it, but rather use the population as a shield while they are trying to take down israeli planes.

itai said,

August 2, 2006 @

Tom is right that what’s the picture was meant to prove.
avneron, come on…the patriots are deployed at least a few miles out of urban areas and since HZA has no way of targeting them it’s really irrelevant. I read this sort of claim in looney left articles that also claim that since there are soldiers on civilian buses it’s legitimate to blow them up.
but you are right that this photo doesn’t prove anything: a. all the people are armed or manning the gun. The fact that they don’t wear uniform is a breach of the Geneva convention by the way

avneron said,

August 3, 2006 @

itai, i think this picture does not prove much to help israel’s case. israel should come up with more pictures and video footage of hezbollah activity from within civilian population to help its case. if this is the best israel got then the PR situation is going to get worst.

anit-aircraft gun manned by amateurs… israel should be able to do better than that.

itai said,

August 3, 2006 @

avneron, I don’t know why you assume they are amatures, because they don’t wear uniforms? HZA is the best guerrila force in the world (except Egoz maybe)
There is a lot of filmed evidence your network channels don’t bother to show. I wonder why…
Dozens of UAV films showing rocket launches from civilian areas, rocket launchers on trucks firing and then driving fast into a village to hide. Footage of munition depots in civilian houses in villages. The arab press itself tells the story of the “brave” HZA resistance who fire at soldiers from windows in the villages. Israel published footage from the special forces raid on a hospital in Baal-Beq yesterday. The doctors had AK47 in their cabinets…
When Israel captures or kills a guerrila they say he was a civilian. Lebanon doesn’t respect any law or convention of war.
The media is biased, reporters who returned from Lebanon say the HZA told them exactly where and what to film.
Like I said in earlier posts the Lebanese government lies about thier casualties and damages. e.g. after checking the Qana incident red cross published now the final count is 28 bodies. I assume the Lebanese government at least double the numbers and counting guerrilas as civilian. I don’t like the way Israel cooperates with the big lie: poor weak Lebanon is the victim. They are responsible:
1. HZA sits in the government and on July 12th their ambassador to the U.S. expressed support of HZA attack on TV, so did another minister in their cabinet.
2. HZA militia raided across the intl. border, killed and kidnapped soldiers and shelled Israeli towns.
3. For all purposes this constitutes a declaration of war (an unprovoked and a criminal war at that) from Lebanon’s side. It’s their sovereigntythen it’s their responsibility. They can’t keep switching their masks and play innocent.
4. The Government fully support HZA now, the polls shows 80% of their public does too.
5. And again they break all the rules of war and target Israeli civilians on purpose.

Israel is too soft. It uses a fraction of it’s fire power with extreme caution.
I really think Israel should erase any village from where rockets are being launched or guerrilas fight. I think every Lebanese caught armed not wearing uniform should be excuted according to intl. law. I think that demanding the Lebanese government unconditional surrender is also a legitimate move. That’s what any country who has the military might would have done if put in Israel’s shoes.

The problem is that most of the world is hypocrite, afraid of the Arabs and biased against Israel. Not to mention it’s the new form of socially accepted antisemitism, I’ll send you a couple of recent cartoons from popular mexican, spanish and italian news papers.

We’re lucky we have the American people to trust but I don’t know ho long it will last.

avneron said,

August 3, 2006 @

i don’t think all the media is biased.
i watch TV every other day or so to see how this is playing out in television. so i tune in to both CNN and Fox.

Fox is biased indeed, but towards israel.
and i must tell you they are doing their best to portray the hezbollah as savage beasts without any moral code. so my only conclusion is that either israel is doing a poor job pushing incriminating videos to the media, or there are just not so many of these videos/pictures to show.

with regard to your analysis of the link between hezbollah and the lebanese government. i think you are correct about the facts, but there is more nuance to it.

- hezbollah is basically the only relevant party for shia muslims.
- the lebanese government is 1yr old, and even though israel pulled out in 2000 syria basically ran the show all that time, and disarming the hezbollah was not an option

i think that while we may be right in holding the lebanese government responsible, it may not be the smart thing to do to punish the whole population. it will not make them rise against the hezbollah. but rather the other way around (over 80% support now for hezbollah).

i also agree that israel should have responded much more forcefully (or much more lightly), and that the current level of troops and scale of the operation is problematic. this is the fault of the israeli government and the army. they were too fast to push the button, without giving enough thought to the consequences.

itai said,

August 3, 2006 @

Here’s some live evidence you probably don’t see on your TV (You certainly won’t hear about it in the N.Y. times):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM35dzT9dUI&search=human%20shields
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK7q3IFvGXU&search=human%20shields

Don’t say you can’t notice these are rocket launchers because I’ve seen this on higher resolution and it’s easy to tell.
Maybe they think the masses don’t understand it but intelligent people should.

itai said,

August 3, 2006 @

If you’ll give me some examples of FOX being biased then I’ll agree.
I think all the networks are biased and FOX is fair. It’s not paranoia, the Arab world is bigger and more influential, double standards is a widespread phenomena. Post-colonial, post-modernistic bullshit is dominant in social science and history faculties around the world and in Israel. e.g. Scientific methods are part of western colonialism, hence if you say the world is round and I say it’s flat than all the proof you have means nothing. I’m serious, they teach this as a viable method and barely spend any time on conventional thinking. Adding to that the new form of antisemitism I was talking about unless you think it’s all a big Jewish conspiracy/self victimising/excuse etc’. Maybe it was a coincidence that 6 millions Jews were burned by the Nazis burned while good Europeans stood by, cheered or turned them in. I think Europe hadn’t done it’s “Heshbon Nefesh” like the Germany did and like in Mel Gibson’s examples, old habbits are hard to kick. Maybe why he pisses you off so much, it’s not polite to be an out of the closet antisemite anymore. Well, they are out there in great numbers I’m afraid and they found a great outlet: Zionist Opression.

itai said,

August 3, 2006 @

Well, with hindsight what would you have done on July 12th?

Btw the operation so far yielded both diplomatic and military results. You can be certain that if Nasrallah had a time machine he would have travelled back already. He’s isolated in the world and among Arab regimes, he suffered heavy losses and was without a doubt surprised by Israel’s move. Part of Israel’s deterrence towards its enemies was restored even if not enough.

avneron said,

August 3, 2006 @

with regard to fox. my comment regarding their bias is based on watching some of their shows from time to time (the o'rielly factor, hannity & colmes, gretta von whatever). they are right-wing and they are not shy about it. i can probably find for you some research proving it, rather then based on my anecdotal impression. i agree with you that there are many anti-semites that are hiding behind the anti-zionist/anti-israel cover. mel gibson pisses me off because he is a hypocrite.

avneron said,

August 3, 2006 @

i think July 12th the cabinet should have looked into several potential actions and the resulting scenarios, and respond after these scenarios have been discussed and proper preparations were being made.

i think the hezbollah did not expect israel’s response (why would they? in the past israel did very little in response to kidnapping and firing rockets at civilians), but it seems they were well prepared to fight a guerrilla type war.

i also think israel did not expect the hezbollah will be able to fire so many rockets and inflict such damage on the north.

if the government was not surprised (as olmert claims) by hezbollah’s level of resistance, then how come they did not prepare the civilian population in the north? how come they did not provide additional budget and resources for the first-responders in the north? how come they did not call up reserve service before launching the attack? how come they did not ask for the US arm shipment in advance? how come it tool so long for the ground operation to scale?

to answer your question. i would have given several days/weeks? to analyze the different scenarios and only then act.

itai said,

August 3, 2006 @

1. Immediate action was crucial otherwise it would have percieved as out of context and would be a definite no-go. Look how fast the world forgot who started this war. apparently Bush and Blur are the only leaders who haven’t gone senile.

2. Israel definitley knew about there rocket capabilities. As a low ranking officer in the rear command (Is that how “Pikud HaOref” translates?) I can tell you that we ran the exact script we are going through now. The numbers and the types of rockets were presented to us and expectations were of much higher rate of fire from their side. The IAF strike on the first day probably took out thier longer range with heavier warheads rockets. That’s why they didn’t draft me btw, they don’t need me :-( I keep asking but they give me that “don’t call us, we’ll call you” response…

3. I agree with you regarding the government’s civil response (they are cheap bastards, that’s why) and readyness. As far as the readyness side goes I can testify that “Pikud HaOref” are amatures, it’s a last post for officers who advanced too much for no good reason and in general, it’s a mess. Even obviously expected problems that we asked about weren’t addressed and we now see the results.

4. The response had to be done quickly in order to achieve surprise. The air force is the only part of the army that can be put into action within hours. Reserves take time to mobilize and prepare for action (reserves are now doing max. 15 days of training per year btw). I think they started with small incursions and are taking it slow because for some wierd reason Israeli society is much more willing to accept rocket barrages on its citizens and some casualties than to accept the loss of lives of its finest children on the battlefront like in normal societies. e.g. when 8 people died in a train depot in Haifa it was pretty much business as usual, when 8 troops died in Bint-Jbeil the whole country was grief strucked.

But in general those are my answers, I’m not an expert on the subject and I don’t bare the responsibility the decision makers bare. War in general is a hard to control big mess with a lot of screw ups, a lot of unexpected surprises and its all covered with fog during and sometimes after.

They summon up all these retired generals and self named analysts to criticize the army on our public channels. I really liked what Uri Sagi answered when asked to criticize a certain aspect of the war: “I retired 10 years ago, I’m not familiar with the subject as the current general holding my position is and most important I’m not carrying the burden of responsibility he does.” It was a rare response among the parade of retired generals ranting on TV while the soldier die.

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