Mere Rhetoric: We Are Unimpressed by Amnesty International's Condemnation Of Israel. In Fact, We Think It's Kind of Ugly.

The giant sucking sound you hear is whatever was left of Amnesty International's credibility:

Israeli forces and Hizbullah guerrillas committed war crimes by attacking civilians during their 34-day war in southern Lebanon earlier this year, Amnesty International said Tuesday. In its third report on the conflict, the human rights group said Israeli forces were guilty of "indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on a large scale." "These include the sustained artillery bombardment of south Lebanon and, in particular, the widespread use of cluster bombs in civilian areas in the last days of fighting, leaving a lethal legacy which continues to blight civilian lives," the report said. Examples of attacks on civilian infrastructure included the bombing of the Jiyye power station which also caused massive environmental damage, the report said.

As you might expect, we have some reasons why we think that this report is biased:

(1) We don't think that Hezbollah is necessarily blameless for Lebanese civilians being in the line of Israeli fire. This is because Hezbollah is almost single-handedly responsible for putting Lebanese civilians in the line of Israeli fire, which is the opposite of "blameless". Some Hezbollah militia put up roadblocks to keep civilians inside densely-packed cities, while other Hezbollah militia used those civilians as human shields to fire missiles at Israeli schools and hospitals:

(2) We also think that, in addition to using civilians as human shields, Hezbollah committed the related but distinct war crime of transforming civilian infrastructure into military infrastucture. This makes AI's charge that Israel targeted civilian infrastucture especially dense and tenuous. In this video, it's the stroller in the background of the guy's living room / weapons depot that's particularly charming:

(3) We further think that the report draws an unjustifiable equivocation between Israel desperately trying to pick out Hezbollah infrastructure in civilian areas and Hezbollah indiscrimately shelling Israeli civilians:

It's not that there aren't ways that Israel could have been more careful. It's just that we're highly suspicious of a human rights organizations that pick out those things as the most important aspects of the conflict. We just don't understand how you can compare Israeli attempts to spare Lebanese civilians with Hezbollah attempts to murder Israeli civilians - or how you can compare Israeli attempts to spare Lebanese civilians with Hezbollah attempts to endanger Lebanese civilians - and conclude that the side that really bears responsibility is Israel. It makes no logical sense to us - the definitions of the word "blame" don't really seem to hold up. So we remain unimpressed by the nuance of this report, and suspicious that there might be calculations and impulses driving AI's report beyond strict neutral analysis.

Oh, and as to the casualty figures: distorted at best, fabricated at worst.

Previously: If the UN Doesn't Want to Get Bombed Like Hezbollah Allies, Maybe They Should Stop Being Hezbollah Allies, UN: Sure Hezbollah is Bad, But Have You Considered How Much Israel Sucks?, Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win