Israeli Commandos: The Pride of their People…

Reports are circulating in Lebanon that 6 civilians are missing. It is believed that they have been kidnapped by the Israeli commandos in this morning’s raid on the hospital in Tal al-Abiad. Lebanese police also announced the killing of 11 civilians and the complete destruction of Dar al-Hikma hospital. The Israelis can now be proud of their commandos. They were, after all, successful … in kidnapping unarmed civilians and annihilating … a hospital. Reports are varying on the number of Israeli soldiers killed and wounded.

In response to accusations of the kidnapping of civilians and the attack on the hospital, the Israelis will claim HezbAllah was using the wounded and ill in the hospital as human shields… Already they are at the beginning stages of admitting that the people they kidnapped were civilians – they now claim they were “junior HezbAllah militants”. What on earth is that supposed to mean? Junior militants? Oh, yeah, Israel has kidnapped 6 teenagers from the hospital. Israel can only flex its muscles on unarmed civilians – women, children, the elderly, the disabled.

In response to the kidnapping of civilians (this is not the first time – a few days ago I reported that the IDF was arresting civilians in Maroun al-Ras; on another occasion, Israel claimed to have arrested a HezbAllah fighter, but the man later turned out to have been an unarmed civilian, and was released, much to the shame of the IDF), HezbAllah has – after a 2-day lull – fired Katyushas at northern Israel (Tiberias, Safed, Hatzor Haglilit, Beit She’an, Yavna’el, Kiryat Shmona, Ma’alot, Rosh Pina, Nahariya, Acre, Haifa). Ironically, these past two days Israelis were cheering the IDF on because they actually believed that its actions led to the lull… The self-deception didn’t last long, did it? Isn’t it obvious, as Olmert, Peretz, Halutz & co. have been repeating for the past – what, 2 weeks? – most HezbAllah rocket launchers have been destroyed, as have most of the long-range rockets – sorry, missiles…

Ha’aretz – the so-called leftist newspaper which has thrown its full weight behind the IDF, and has pretty much been acting like its official mouthpiece – now has a piece on the alleged media deception by HezbAllah. The article asserts that the claim that 35 IDF soldiers were either killed or wounded at Ayta al-Sha’ab is unbelievable. Anyone with an ounce of brains and who can draw conclusions from the developments in this “conflict” (or the even more watered-down version, “crisis”) would not deny that the Israelis are yet to score a real victory on the battlefield… unless you count the capture of Maroun al-Ras as a victory… So what makes the figure of 35 wounded or killed unbelievable? How many Israeli soldiers were killed since the fighting began? How many helicopters crashed? How many drones were downed? But no, all those were due to “technical malfunction” (don’t forget the unintentional bombing of the UN compound), and most Israeli deaths were due to – friendly fire? Less than a week ago, Professor As’ad Abu Khalil put it more eloquently than I ever could:

So if you follow Israeli propaganda, you get this picture. Of all the Israeli military casualties in Lebanon thus far, 70% are from “friendly fire”; 10% are due to cooking accidents; 10% due to traffic accidents; 3% to peanut allergies; 1% due to snake bites; and the rest are due to poisonous mushrooms eaten in Marun Ar-Ras. OK.