Lies, Double Standards, and Culpable Fallacies
Raja Halwani, Electronic Lebanon, 23 July 2006

"Lebanon is being sold for the price of a word: Terrorism. What a bad joke!" by Beirut artist and blogger Mazen Kerbaj. View more of his work.
The following is a list - by no means exhaustive - of lies, double standards, and culpable fallacies perpetrated by US and Israeli officials.

Lie: On Thursday, July 20, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, claimed that Israel's current attack on Lebanon is a war for its very existence. Indeed, every time Israel has entered into a war with its Arab neighbors, be it the 1956 war, the 1967 war, the 1973 war, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, or its perpetual war with the Palestinians, Israeli officials have claimed that Israel is fighting for its survival, defending its very existence from Arabs who want to annihilate it.

This is a blatant lie. First, Israel has the mightiest military in the region, possessing state-of-the-art weapons, including nuclear ones (Israel's "open secret"). How the area's strongest country faces existential threats by its far weaker neighbors has yet to be explained. The Palestinians, always portrayed by Israel as threatening its existence, are basically an unarmed people, relying on rocks, firearms, and crudely made rockets to fight Israel's occupation. Second, any careful reading of history shows that it was Israel that has proved over and over again to be resistant to Arab overtures of peace, pursuing a policy of territorial expansion at the expense of a lasting and just settlement to its conflict with the Palestinians. Virtually every single Israeli prime minister, from David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, to Ehud Olmert, has rejected a just settlement. Even the much vaunted peaceniks Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak had their own view of what a Palestinian state should be: a shrunken one, with no full sovereignty, a view that no Palestinian leader could accept without rejection from his people.

Double Standard: On Friday, July 21, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice claimed during a press conference that Hizbullah's penetration of Israeli territory and its abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 violated numerous international laws. That may be so, but her statement is a blatantly selective application of international law. Rice did not, for example, mention the numerous international laws that Israel has violated and continues to violate. Here are a few examples: UN General Assembly resolution 194, which calls on Israel to repatriate the Palestinian refugees; UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which demand of Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in the 1967 war; and the various UN resolutions calling on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon after its 1982 invasion (which Israel eventually heeded, but fully only in 2000, thus defeating the very point of issuing such resolutions).

Culpable Fallacy: On Thursday, July 19, US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, repeated the claim during a press conference that it was Hizbullah that started and caused the current conflict. First, assuming for a moment that we agree that Hizbullah's abduction of the two Israeli soldiers is the appropriate starting point, it does not follow that just because Hizbullah "started" and "caused" this conflict Israel's responsibility somehow disappears and Israel can take a moral holiday. For surely Israel can choose to end the conflict or can choose to take it in a non-military direction. Or are Israeli officials mere robots, such that by pressing the right buttons Hizbullah can unleash a wholesale attack by Israel on Lebanon? Second, why begin with Hizbullah's abduction of the two Israeli soldiers? Why not begin with Israel's continual violations of Lebanon's sovereignty? Why not Israel's continued occupation of Lebanon till 2000 that helped to give Hizbullah its continued reason for existing and operating? Why not its 1982 invasion that helped sow the seeds for Hizbullah's very existence? Why not even begin with Israel's occupation in 1967 of more Palestinian lands? Indeed, why not begin in 1948, with Israel's creation and the simultaneous creation of the Palestinian refugee problem and future turmoil in the region?

Lie: Israeli officials, supported by the US mainstream media, continually assert that Israel targets only Hizbullah positions, and that any civilian casualties are due to either mistakes or to Hizbullah's hiding amidst civilian populations. But anyone who takes a good look at the havoc that Israel has wreaked on Lebanon since its attack 10 days ago cannot but dispute such a claim. Are the factories, the power-grids, the trucks, the homes, and other civilian infrastructures Hizbullah positions? This is clearly not so. Indeed, Israel has admitted that it has targeted these places in order to cripple Hizbullah. But with this admission, the game is up. What about when Israel hits a civilian building with the excuse that Hizbullah uses it? Why does this count as targeting civilians? Well, someone can say that the Israeli pilot's intention is not to kill civilians, but Hizbullah fighters, and so he is not, after all, targeting civilians. But this won't do. When I fell a tree to build a house, the distinction here is not between intending to build a house and not intending to fell the tree. I intend to do both. The distinction here is rather between ultimate or final intentions and mediate ones: the Israeli pilot ultimately intends the death of Hizbullah fighters, but mediately intends the death of civilians. There is no way around it. In any case, the record speaks for itself: can the overwhelming deaths over the past decades of Palestinian civilians, and, over the past 10 days, in Lebanon (setting aside those during Israel's many incursions into this country) all be due to accidents and mistakes? Israel certainly needs to explain these numbers, and by "explain" I don't simply mean repeating over and over the mantra that Israel does not target civilians.

But doesn't Hizbullah hide among civilians? I don't know about the word "hide" - after all, Hizbullah fighters have not exactly proven themselves cowardly - but Hizbullah is not a state army, it is a militia, a military organization (that some describe as a resistance movement and others as a terrorist organization). Historically, such groups have operated among civilian populations, populations that typically allow them to do so because they come from and are supported by these populations. If they are to successfully carry out their goals, they have to; otherwise, they would be continuously defeated. This is why, while Israel surely prefers that Hizbullah operate from tall buildings with neon signs that say, "THIS IS HIZBULLAH; COME BOMB US," Hizbullah is not about to do so. And unless we totally rule out the moral permissibility of such groups - and we shouldn't, since we then rob people of their right to resist oppression - then we cannot condemn in a blanket way the fact that they tend to operate from among civilians.

Double Standard: Both US and Israeli officials claim that Hizbullah is a terrorist organization. I do not wish to argue that it is not one (it has targeted civilians), though Hizbullah itself vehemently denies the claim and most Arabs in the region do not see it as one. I do want to take issue with the double standard: if Israel targets civilians, then Israel is a terrorist state. And not only has Israel targeted civilians in its day to day military operations in Lebanon and in the occupied Palestinian territories, it has also maintained a military occupation of the Palestinians since 1967 that has wreaked havoc and fear on their lives - in a word, terrorized them. Moreover, nothing hinges on the fact that Hizbullah is an organization while Israel is a state; this is utterly irrelevant: if the essence of terrorism is the targeting of civilians for political purposes, then one can be an organization, a state, and even Santa Claus, can be terrorist.

Culpable Fallacy: We have been told repeatedly in recent days by Israeli officials that Israel is not interested in occupying Lebanon but only in getting get rid of Hizbulllah or at least weakening it. I will not dispute the first claim: given Israel's experience in Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, it makes sense that it does not wish to occupy the country (although Israel's intentions and plans are not clear, and, in any case, events in the region have a way of wresting things from the hands of leaders and their desires). But the second claim contains a fallacy. Let us suppose that Israel succeeds to the fullest extent: it goes into Lebanon, dismantles all Hizbullah's infrastructure, and arrests or kills every single one of their fighters. Then what? Has it gotten rid of Hizbullah? For a while, yes it has. But then more fighters will crop up, learning from their predecessors' mistakes and more determined to inflict even more damaging blows on Israel, with far more serious repercussions for its citizens. And then we're back to square one, with Israel attacking again and claiming that it wants to defeat Hizbullah II. My dear Israeli brethren: if you want to defeat Hizbullah, then get rid of its popular support and the reason for its being. But to do that, you'll have to start treating the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and other Arabs with a lot more respect, far less racism, and with bushels of moral decency and justice.

A Few Words on Being Patronizing: In the last couple of days, a few Israeli officials have started saying that they want to get rid of Hizbullah not just for Israel's sake, but also for the sake of the Lebanese, so that Lebanon can become a truly sovereign nation. God help us. We have a saying back from where I come from (Lebanon): "He killed us with his kindness." This is exactly what Israel is doing. In its zeal to help Lebanon become a sovereign nation, it has so far managed to kill about 300 Lebanese, injure over 500, and displace over 500,000. I shudder at the thought of more help from Israel. But it seems that Israel wants to add to its glittering list of adjectives - being arrogant, racist, aggressive, domineering, unjust - the word "patronizing."

Nothing I have said here is original. But in a world whose leaders are almost completely deaf, these claims bear repeating, even shouting.

Lebanese woman photographer killed in Israeli bombing

Reporters Without Borders expressed great shock today at the death of Lebanese press photographer Layal Nagib in an Israeli attack on the southern Lebanese town of Cana. Her death follows that of a technician for Lebanese TV station LBC in Israeli bombing east of Beirut yesterday.

“We are appalled that the Israeli army is taking so few precautions to avoid civilian deaths or casualties, especially among the media,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “We demand that the Israel government investigate the shooting that killed Nagib. We will not be satisfied by the army’s standard response that the targets were military ones linked to Hezbollah.”

Nagib, 23, was killed when a missile exploded near her car on the road between Cana et Siddiqin, not far from the southern city of Tyre. Her driver and local doctors said she was killed instantly. She was covering the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon for the magazine Al Jarass (The Bell) and had also worked for several international news agencies.

The ongoing US conquest of Iraq has been probably the deadliest ever for war correspondents, and it's all but certain that US Hitlerians are deliberately murdering non-aligned reporters in order to discourage any journalism they can't directly control.

And now the Israelis are -- "whoops" -- likewise blowing away correspondents who might document their war crimes

This is no coincidence. Israel's sudden wild rampage into Lebanon is just the next stage of a SINGLE war with a SINGLE plan drawn up by a SINGLE set of zio-psycho war-pigs

from http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3850/1/199/
"Phyllis Bennis, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power, said "Hezbollah's attack was a border skirmish -- something common on borders all over the world all the time and hardly new on the Israel-Lebanon border. A border skirmish is not the beginning of a war unless one side wants it to be. The Israeli government wanted it to be."

"Iran is ... months away from completing their program to develop nuclear weapons"

"months?" HAHAHAHA!

Try YEARS. That's how long it would take for them to have an operational deliverable bomb, which may or MAY NOT be their objective. But of course YOU want me to believe it's all they can think about.

I may be a goy and all, but I'm not quite stupid enough to get neoconned with WMD lies twice in a row. Don't let that stop you, though, from tugging away on those strings you THINK are attached to my brain. Never mind how they never get taut, no matter how much you reel in.

Shit, I hope the Iranians DO build some bombs! More power to 'em. That seems to be the only way any nation can force the US Empire and its zionist attack-monkeys to leave them the fuck alone. The chance they'll use them unilaterally is at least as remote as for any existing nuclear power, since they'd have to be suicidally insane to do it.

No, I don't think they ARE suicidally insane, I think YOU just want me to believe they are. Go 'head, reel that string all the way in. See how it pops out of its hole and flops on the ground, how the end's cut nice and clean? Gee, what could this possibly mean? I know you're an Übermensch and all, but the significance of this should penetrate even your breath-taking arrogance

If anybody's engaged in a diversionary move, it would be Israel trying to draw the world's attention away from it's continuing atrocities in Gaza. 'Taint workin, though. 'Sright, jus keep pullin them loose strings, string-monkey. World done got to know you too good...

A couple of easy assumptions. Always just assume;

1. TW is wrong;
2. whatever TW says, believe the opposite
3. whatever the issue, TW will blame Israel
4. whatever the issue , TW will wish to exonerate the Palestinians from responsibility for their own actions.

I’m confused. How long have we been lingering in Iraq? Three years? Four? And how many people are dying, not to mention the trillions of US tax dollars going towards funding this war? Hey, I am not complaining. The extreme Islamists in Iraq are bad guys, who are a threat to their region and the world, and I support our troops, who are doing their best to prevent Islamist expansion beyond that region, and to protect us at home. Yet, there is no outcry to remove forces immediately or rush to United Nation’s resolutions.

However, just when you would think the Los Angeles Times and their biased ilk could not get any worse, sure enough they prove us wrong. Our news media reminds us daily of the hundreds of Iraqis and United States soldiers who are being killed. That’s an awful “given” of war, that western media has been rehashing on our domestic front for more than 1,000 days. So, that being said, can someone tell me why, when Israel, after finally reaching her breaking point and no longer able to tolerate the continued Hamas and Hezbollah missile attacks, using Iranian katyusha and other long-range rockets, moves to protect herself, as any sovereign country has a right and duty to do, world opinion is already rushing in to protect the terrorists? Apparently this is too difficult to understand.

In between photo-ops with the Hezbollah leader, Kofi Annan gives a press conference offering his solution, which seems to consist entirely of calling for Israel to stop… stop… stop! How are we to believe a man, whose photograph is proliferating across the internet, showing him thanking Nasrallah, who is the head of Hezbollah, for maintaining law and order in the south of Lebanon in the year 2000? Surely if Annan can acknowledge Hezbollah was responsible for that, how can he now accept that it is Israel which is undermining the country's sovereignty?

World-wide those leaders and “experts” who are supposedly in accord with Israel’s right to defend herself, pepper their comments with absurdities, such as how many hours Israel has been in ‘conflict.’ We know it’s OK to spend years, if necessary, in enemy territory defending the USA, yet Israel’s defensive efforts are judged in hours and days.

I do notice, however, that Israel has stated unequivocally that they would leave Lebanon, if this same Kofi Anan and his United Nations would push Syria to also leave Lebanon. Israel’s position is that the Lebanese army also has to take up its position at the border with Israel and that Hezbollah has to be disarmed -- both included in UN resolution 1559, and ensure that terrorists would not be able to shoot any rockets into Israel’s civilian population. This was their agreement when Israel was forced to withdraw from Lebanon.

As usual, lots of talk, with photo-ops, but is anybody convinced by the efforts of the Lebanese government or the results so far? How do you arrange a cease-fire with a group of terrorists? Hezbollah’s demand for the release of imprisoned terrorists in exchange for Israeli captives is not an option and it sure is not an option any other country (except maybe France) would tolerate.

Why do they expect Israel to negotiate? Could we have set up negotiations with Hitler? Chamberlain tried that and we saw how brilliantly that turned out. Israel is in the position now of being able to drive a globally mutual enemy out of the area. I watch with disgust as the completely anti-Semitic United Nations, when it considers the Middle East, concentrates only on trying to rein in Israel. Not a surprise though. That is what always happens: instead of finding real solutions, the only answer the world can find is reining in Israel. That is what always happens when Israel has been attacked and is close to destroying the enemy. In addition, I do not remember when the phrase “disproportionate” became an acceptable gauge of a country’s right to defend themselves from attacks against its citizens.

Israel’s position is well established and known: that it would withdraw if Hezbollah stops firing rockets into Israel, and returns the kidnapped soldiers. Simple? It might be helpful if Kofi and gang would specifically mention in their condemnations that Syria and Iran must cease supplying arms for the terrorists to attack Israel.

Israel must be allowed to win a war that has been thrust upon them. Israel is the best friend of the United States and western democracies. Our interests are tied together. If Israel is forced to turn over the West Bank to Hamas terrorists it would only threaten the area more. In fact, I’ll go one step further. Now, in my opinion, would be a perfect time to annex the territories. This is not a situation that can be cured by short-term State Dept. responses, nor is it, despite the Los Angeles Times’ insistence, a short term conflict.

The same pro-Palestinian Los Angeles Times always looks for a Jew-baiting story. It is well past time that they acknowledged this ludicrous and obscene situation, where the sovereign Jewish State has to defend its right to even exist. It might be prudent to remind our government that we share the same enemies; that Israel is fighting America’s battle at the moment. Israel is also fighting, by proxy, America’s war with Iran.

It concerns me when I read LA Times headlines such as “Israeli Arabs are caught in a web of Conflicting Emotions.” The Times went on to say, “They are threatened, along with Jews, as Hezbollah rockets land in their midst, but many sympathize with their brethren in Lebanon.” Well gol-ly, since they dance on the rooftops after each rocket hits an Israeli city… maybe it’s time to not only annex the area but cut out the cancer within ... and transfer them! The same way Beirut was able to clear out its population in just a few days....it could happen in Gaza. No! It should happen in Gaza. Since the Israeli Arabs have such terrible conflicts living among the dreaded Jewish infidels, now would be a perfect time for the enemy within to leave. For the Palestinian Arabs who are located in the middle of Israel, in my opinion, the only solution is transfer! After each attack on Israel citizens, the IDF should drop leaflets and announce that 10% of a specific PA area will be taken back and all Arab residents will have one week to move to any Arab country. Then do it!

Double amputee falls victim to Israelis for second time


BEIRUT: When he was a young man, they impaired his arm, and now, as a father of five, they took both his legs. "Israel has been my personal curse throughout my life," said Ahmad Khaleel Ali, as he lay in the Rafik Hariri Public Hospital in Beirut with both of his legs amputated at the knees.

Ali, his wife Karam and their five children - Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; Ali, 9; Aya, 3; and Oula, 1 - were all wounded when an Israeli rocket hit their shelter in the Southern town of Blida.

"We heard about five bombs with each one like an earth quake, and then the sixth one struck us," said Ali, who immediately realized he had lost both his legs, and had asked one of his family members to tie up his legs to stop the bleeding.

"That kind of pain is indescribable, but it is not just the physical pain that is unbearable, it is the mental pain of knowing that I have lost my future," said Ali, a taxi driver.

Ali recalled how back in 1974 he was sitting on a terrace with two friends and an Israeli warplane dropped a bomb, killing both his friends and rendering his right arm paralyzed.

"I can barely make a fist, but who cares about that when now I am half a man and won't be able to help my family?" said Ali, whose sister Najma sat praying in the corner of the room for her brother's tragedy.

Mira, Ali's daughter, with broken legs and stitches in her head, said she is angry at both Israel and Hizbullah.

More
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74229

sraeli intelligence informed the family of Abu Abed, east of Gaza City, to vacate their two-story home. The Israelis said they intended to use warplanes to destroy the house. A number of missiles were fired, destroying the family home, killing two, and injuring four civilian Palestinians late Monday

The family reported Tuesday that they were suspicious of the credibility of the warning as the party was speaking in broken Arabic. The man issuing the warning said, “We are in the IDF and you need to vacate the house immediately because he will destroy it.” Only then was the warning taken seriously.

It appears that the same situation was repeated with the citizen Salah Sha’er and his four-story home on the road between the western provinces and Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The threat was followed through on to completely destroy area homes, which injured several Palestinians. Another house in the neighborhood of , east of Rafah, was included.

The Israeli army has issued warnings days before Israeli warplanes targeted residential homes in the Gaza Strip, those they believe are used by members of the armed resistance.

In the same context Israeli forces displaced some 400 families in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia Monday. They claimed missiles were fired at Israeli towns north of the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses said the Israeli army informed the owners of two other dwellings in Gaza City as a prelude to the aerial bombardments. The families are now homeless.

For its part the International Red Cross has denied Tuesday that it issued announcements to homeowners to evacuate, stating they do not act as a go-between with Israeli forces and Palestinian home owners with houses on the verge of destruction. A Red Cross spokesperson in Gaza said, “This cannot be the role of the Red Cross.”

He explained further, “When we asked one of the citizens who was bombed home why the belief is prevalent that the Red Cross told him to evacuate his home he replied that when he heard the speaker using a certain accent he said simply, ‘I think it was the Red Cross.’”

Read More
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20328&Itemid=1