Human Rights Watch refutes Israeli line on Hezbollah ‘human shields’
The Globe is reporting the release of a Human Rights Watch report on Israel’s invasion of Lebanon last summer.
So what to conclude? Both sides bad? Maybe, but look at the casualty figures. The Globe puts the death toll in Lebanon at over 1,000 people. In contrast, Hezbollah killed 159 people, including 40 soldiers.
That’s a ration of six to one Lebanese to Israeli deaths. Compared to the Palestinian Intifada’s ratio of about 100 to one, I suppose six to one might actually qualify as a Hezbollah victory, but it should, at the very least bring the Israeli government some widespread condemnation.
I’ll be somewhere among the middle of the pack in the race among the conspiracy theorists to predict it won’t.
If I lived in southern Lebanon, I might vote for Hezbollah, but I don’t so I see them as inept hotheads who take a legitimate cause and turn it into senseless bloodshed, mostly their own.
But on balance, I’d say the Israeli government has a whole lot more to answer for.
