Monday, October 23, 2006

Israel Used Phosphorus Weapons and Cluster Bombs, Loses Moral High Ground

This doesn't seem to be in the US media (except the Washington Post). If you didn't think Israel went overboard in its attacks on Lebanon you're wrong.

Israel admits using phosphorus bombs during war in Lebanon. White Phosphorus weapons aren't illegal but that's because Israel and the US haven't signed that treaty. Some would call them chemical weapons. At the very least, are they really needed? Israel also used a large number of cluster bombs in Lebanon

It's tactics like these that cause Israel and the US to lose the moral high ground and allows the other side to accuse us (rightfully) of terror tactics. This isn't helping anything.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure about Israel and moral ground. I would not go into history but impact from terrorism and aggresion on Israel is much different (read, greater) then that suffered by US. They are not in the same boat. I have been following european press on Israel and I have to say I have sense a lot of bias against Israel. From reading Le Monde or Der Spiegel it seems Israel can not do anything right. So, I am not sure about moral ground. I liked very much what Nataniahu said on Bill Maher about that a few weeks ago.

Howard said...

I completely agree and was hesitant to post this for just those reasons, nevertheless, I feel confident these actions were wrong for two reasons. They don't do much more to stop the bad guys (and inflict more civilian casualties) and it gives the anti-Israeli folks a legitimate argument to make of Israel as aggressors. It seems to me if they are ever going to have peace while surrounded by Arab nations, they can legitimately have a strong defense but they can't be an aggressive offensive force.