The other day I wrote a post about HRW forgetting Hezbollah's actions in a release that condemned Israel soley. I even went so far as to write HRW, asking why that was.
The response I recieved from HRW was less then satisfactory. To be honest, it was a total copout. I was considering posting it, sans the senders name, then I ran across this:
Israel/Lebanon: Hezbollah Must End Attacks on Civilians: Rocket Attacks on Civilians in Israel Are War Crimes
(New York, August 5, 2006) – Hezbollah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Entering the fourth week of attacks, such rockets have claimed 30 civilian lives, including six children, and wounded hundreds more.
“Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. ”Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war.”
Hezbollah claims that some of its attacks are aimed at military bases inside Israel, which are legitimate targets. But most of the attacks appear to have been directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools, homes and businesses.
As of August 4, Hezbollah had launched a reported 2,500 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in northern Israel. Some longer-range rockets landed as far south as the city of Hadera, some 85 km from the border. Hezbollah announced that it had attacked Hadera on August 4 in retaliation for an Israeli air raid in Lebanon earlier that day that reportedly killed more than 20 farm workers.
Kudos to HRW. I take back most of the negative statements I wrote about them.
Of course, they did go out of their way to condemn Israel first, then took a few days to say anything about Hezbollah.
Interestingly, a search of Yahoo News with the phrase "human rights watch" only brings up one article, from the Voice of America, within the first 50 links, that mentions this HRW slam of Hezbollah.
How about Google News? Bupkis.
The MSM's? Not even going to waste time looking. Anti-Israeli sentiment gets top billing. Anti-terrorist? Not worth their time.
