After all, the whole military history of Israel – a history we’re not supposed to know about – is based on various tricks to make Israeli offensive land-grabbing acts look like defensive acts.  If this ‘defensive’ act with its appalling consequences is shown to be a trick, Israel will have trouble pulling these tricks in the future.   Even a ‘Zionist lite’ like Ran HaCohen now feels the need to ‘refute’ the idea that the attack on Lebanon is based on another such trick.  Of course, critics of Israel don’t need to take a position on where the soldiers were captured in order to maintain that it is not acceptable to destroy a whole country in retaliation for the capture of two soldiers.  Nevertheless, you can see where the Zionist rhetoricians are going with this: 

• critics of Israel rely on where the capture was made as being important
• capture is ‘proved’ as being in Israel
• therefore, what Israel is doing is justified.

This is an old debating trick, and the fact that it does not follow doesn’t mean they won’t try to use it.

If you read HaCohen’s arguments, you will see that he in no way disproves the common assertion that the capture was made in Lebanon.  He has a quibble for each separate source, but no more than a quibble, and the fact that all the sources consistently and independently point to a capture on Lebanese territory seems to conclude the issue. 

Representative Press (found via Cannonfire) argues that one of the sources for the idea that the capture was in Lebanon, AP, is based on a faulty