They are
saying that Israel will invade Lebanon tonight.
Yesterday, William Bennett was on Wolfie's Situation Room. Boldface is mine.
BENNETT: Yes, exercise restraint, absolutely, but I think continue the military actions. Otherwise, the minute they stop, it will start again from the other side.
It's an amazing situation. And your last guest said, you know, here, people go for Israel's throat again. They take, kidnap two of its soldiers, two of its citizens. When Israel responds, we have to have an immediate cease-fire. Not to be flip, but give war a chance. Let the Israelis try to defense themselves, push back Hezbollah, so they won't be facing this constant threat.
Well, that is well and good (or maybe not.) Yes, Israel should defend itself. But, I always thought the phrase was "An eye for an eye," if we must play that "game." But that doesn't seem to be the way it is working out. Last I heard, the ratio of mortalities is about 30 Lebanese deaths for each Israeli death.
It is monstrous when civilians die because of the disputes of misguided politicians or misguided religious zealots.
But I was reminded of something I had read a few years ago, about another time, and another place. I had to dig around in the hard drive for awhile to find it, but when I did, it was deja vu all over again.
The time was April, 2002. The place was the Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank in Palestine.
The reason for the events? Something very similar to what we have heard a lot of in the past 10 days. Again, boldface is mine.
The quote below is from a report issued by Human Rights Watch in 2002 titled Jenin: IDF Military Operations.
On April 3, 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, home to some fourteen thousand Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of them civilians. The Israelis' expressed aim was to capture or kill Palestinian militants responsible for suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed more than seventy Israeli and other civilians since March 2002. The IDF military incursion into the Jenin refugee camp was carried out on an unprecedented scale compared to other military operations mounted by the IDF since the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict began in September 2000.
Sound like a familiar justification for a military action? This quote is taken from Section 2, which is the summary of the whole report, and worth reading if you can't get to the whole thing.
If you have the time to read the whole report, there is quite a lot in it. But be especially sure to take a look at some of the stories that are told in section V VI. Civilian Casualties and Unlawful Killings in Jenin. Some of them are real soul-shakers.
From the report, there were an estimated 52 Palesinian deaths in Jenin, with about 22 of them being civilians. This, in response to the deaths of about 70 civilians in Israel.
Now, the battle is being waged in Lebanon. So far, they have suffered even heavier casualties than the civilians of Jenin. And the precipitating event was not the death of 70 Israeli civilians, as in the case of Jenin, but the deaths of three soldiers and the kidnapping of two soldiers.
This is not meant to be a commentary on the morals of the Israeli people, but of the methods of the IDF, (the Israeli army,) and their leaders. Yes, Hezbollah is a bunch of bad guys, but so is the IDF, at times.
An eye for an eye, it says. Not thirty eyes for an eye.