Offrar Israel sina egna civila?

Idag dödades minst tre civila israeler i ett raketanfall riktat mot ett bostadsområde i Haifa. I Libanon dog minst åtta civila i israeliska flyganfall. Krig är verkligen vidrigt. Anfall mot civila mål är, som jag har skrivit tidigare, fullkomligt oacceptabelt. Vi kan förmodligen förvänta oss den vanliga klagosången att libaneserna får skylla sig själva eftersom Hizbollah så fegt påstås gömma sig bland civilbefolkningen; i israelvännernas världsbild är icke-israeliskt blod billigt. Men är verkligen saken så enkel?

I dagens Reliable Sources på CNN så intervjuades Thomas Ricks som är journalist vid Pentagon för Washington Post. Uppenbarligen så är en del militära analytiker vid det amerikanska försvarsdepertementet av uppfattningen att Israel medvetet inte slår till mot Hizbollahs raketramper; så länge som Israel blir beskjutet med raketer så har man en anledning att fortsätta med krigandet. Hizbollahs raketer mot Israel fungerar också som ett rättfärdigande av israelernas slakt av civila:

And joining us now here Washington Anne Compton who covers the White House for ABC News, and Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for "The Washington Post" and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

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Andra bloggar om: israel, hizbollah, libanon, usa, mellanöstern, politik