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The British journalist Hannen Swaffer (1879-1962) once stated that “[f]reedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor’s prejudices as the advertisers don’t object to”.
In Brian Whitaker’s article of August 4th the freedom to print prejudices was taken to new heights as this Middle East ‘expert’ allowed himself to become so consumed by his own obvious distaste for Israel that his ‘analysis’ turned into nothing more than a ridiculous tirade.
“The problem with the fence is that when the Israelis erected it following their withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, they did not follow the border line exactly. In places, they adjusted the route for convenience and military reasons. “
Immediately one understands that either Whitaker has never set eyes on the Israel – Lebanon border or if he has, he completely failed to comprehend what he saw. As explained on these pages several times over the past few days, there are of course two fences. There is the actual border fence, known as ‘The Blue Line’, the route of which was designed and codified by UN cartographers in the year 2000 when Israel announced that it would withdraw from Lebanon. At the time, the Lebanese government refused to take part in the marking of the border, but on June 16th 2000 the Secretary General of the UN reported to the Security Council that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory according to UN resolution 425 (1978).
The topographic conditions along this border are such that in many places, due to the hilly terrain, patrolling the actual border fence would be technically very difficult. Israel therefore constructed a second fence, within its own territory, with a dust road running alongside it to make the movement of troops and vehicles necessary for the patrolling of the border more efficient. In some places, there is land between the international border and the Israeli fence which is Israeli territory and is known by the term ‘enclave’. It is in one of these enclaves that the IDF was engaged in clearing vegetation when Tuesday’s attack took place.
Senior Lebanese army commanders planned and authorised the cross-border shooting on Tuesday that killed an Israel Defence Forces colonel who was supervising the removal of a tree within Israeli territory, the Lebanese press has reported.
The acknowledgement came at a United Nations-brokered meeting between Major-General Abdul Rahman Chehaitly of the Lebanese army and a senior Israeli officer on Wednesday.
The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported that General Chehaitly told the meeting the shooting was the result of a command decision and could be repeated.
“The soldiers received clear orders to open fire. The responsibility is that of the Israeli army which crossed the border,” General Chehaitly said.
See Daled Amos’ blog for the rest of story, which includes information suggesting that Hezbollah had a role in the attack.
The blue line is “The” Blue Line. The black line is Israel’s fence on their side of the internationally recognized border. Note the location where the IDF suffered casualties and the site where the brush-clearing work was being performed relative to these lines.
Excellent short summary by Carmel Gould at Just Journalism regarding how the “blame Israel first” crowd in the British media has “coped” with irrefutable evidence – concerning the recent flare up in the North – that Israel was in the right.
The Lebanon border clashes have provided us with an unusual case study opportunity: how do hostile elements of the media cope when Israel’s version of events is thoroughly vindicated? The answer seems to be: some better than others.
After the heated exchange of fire on Tuesday, four people were left dead: an Israeli colonel, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist. Lebanon claimed Israel had violated its territory and that its army fired warning shots which were answered with direct Israeli fire. Israel claimed that it had been carrying out maintenance on its own territory in co-ordination with UNIFIL and that the LAF opened fire at its soldiers first.
The following day, UNIFIL confirmed that Israel had been operating on its own side of the international border and the Lebanese army admitted opening fire at the Israelis first “to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
Unlike Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem or Brian Whitaker in London I today abandoned the comfort of my air-conditioner (Israel is currently experiencing a rather vicious heat wave) and travelled to Misgav Am to see the site of yesterday’s fatal cross-border attack for myself and to hear a briefing from the IDF spokesperson and officers who were on the scene.
An officer from the Northern Command gave some interesting background information to the incident. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) rotates its battalions annually and now has more forces in Southern Lebanon than it did in previous years. The battalions are ethnically mixed and comprise Shi’ite, Sunni and Christian soldiers as well as other minorities. Some of the Shi’ite soldiers may well have family members operating in Hizbollah and whereas it was true to say in years gone by that the LAF’s officers were almost exclusively Christian, this is no longer the case and today Shi’ite commanders are also commonplace. Whilst the LAF commanders can be said to behave in a professional manner, such is not always the case with individual soldiers. The LAF is run entirely from Beirut and what happens on the ground in Southern Lebanon is a direct reflection of policy at the head of the command structure. The brigade responsible for yesterday’s incident was the 11th Brigade of the LAF.
Since the last battalion changeover in the Eastern and Central sections which adjoin the Israeli border three months ago there has been a marked rise in the level of aggressive behavior towards the IDF on the part of the Lebanese soldiers, ranging from verbal threats and offensive hand signs to provocative acts involving RPGs and machine guns. The IDF has repeatedly advised the LAF against such behavior by way of UNIFIL as it was obvious that these LAF soldiers were ‘playing with fire’. Unfortunately, the LAF did not see fit to put an end to these provocations and the message obviously filtered down to the troops on the ground that such actions are acceptable. Whilst it is possible that yesterday’s events were the work of a renegade soldier who started a fire but could not control the flames, the incident did not appear out of the blue and it was most likely pre-planned. The blind eye turned by Beirut despite the warnings from the IDF by way of UNIFIL created a situation in which the Lebanese soldiers have been engaged in provocations for a long time with no reprisals against them and no censure from their commanders, bringing about a situation in which they were ‘psyched up’ for provocation.
This is a guest post by AKUS
The fighting today (August 3rd) on the Lebanese border may have been deliberately staged by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) for reasons that are still unclear. Perhaps they wanted to demonstrate to Hezbollah that they are also able to attack Israel inside Israel, perhaps the unit involved is actually a Hezbollah unit in LAF uniforms, or perhaps it has something to do with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Beirut, or Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ tentative moves towards negotiations. Israel believes it was the work of a Hezbollah-affiliated rogue LAF officer.
According to reports corroborated by UNIFIL, the operation had been coordinated in advance with UNIFIL, which in turn informed the Lebanese army as it always does. This information and the intention of a rogue Lebanese officer to stage an ambush were apparently passed on to elements in the Lebanese media. Unless they knew, in advance, what was going to happen, there was no other reason for the Lebanese journalist Asaf Abu Rahal (who worked for the Beirut paper Al Akhbar, and was killed during the incident) to be in such a remote corner of Lebanon covering routine Israeli operations. It appears that he was there to put the right spin on events, and to drive the message home he was accompanied by these photographers to create a Lebanese version of events – a Lebanese Pallywood production.
Several of the photographs that have been widely posted were clearly taken before the incident and, apparently, immediately after the firing began. The published photographs follow a clear timeline. Thus it would appear that the photographers in Lebanon affiliated with Associated Press and Reuters who took the pictures were in place before the incident started.
A picture of the UNIFL soldier waving a UN flag was taken by Ronith Daher-AP, and it appears to show the same truck that Israel was using to mount the crane that would lift the tree out of the area – if so, Daher was there before the firing started, and it is apparent that UNIFIL was on the spot to supervise the Israeli operation.
Reporting from Jerusalem, The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood wrote on August 3rd about the cross-border attack on Israeli troops near Misgav Am. As may be expected, Sherwood’s account neglects to mention some critical information about the incident.
This area of the international border is known as the UN 2000 Blue Line (because its course was stipulated by the UN when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000). In addition to the actual border fence, there’s a second Israeli fence on the Israeli side of the international border. The soldiers involved in the incident were clearing vegetation from both sides of this fence, but were still within Israeli territory (see map below). The IDF regularly engages in such vegetation clearing operations on all Israel’s borders in order to deny cover to terrorists or would-be kidnappers of Israeli soldiers or civilians. Both the Lebanese army and UNIFIL were informed two weeks prior to the day that the IDF would be carrying out pruning operations on that specific date.
Whilst the soldiers were at work, two of their commanders stood nearby, supervising the operation. These two officers were suddenly hit by sniper fire and seriously wounded. The battalion commander later died and the captain is in critical condition with serious chest wounds. The soldiers responded with gunfire towards the direction of the sniper fire. The local command centre of the Lebanese army in Al-Taybeh was also brought under helicopter fire. At one point the Lebanese army requested a halt in hostilities to allow them to evacuate their wounded. The IDF granted this request, but half an hour later, Israeli tanks on the Israeli side of the border came under RPG attack, so fire was returned.
At present it is not yet clear whether the attack was the action of rogue Lebanese Army soldiers (perhaps loyal to Hezbollah) or if it had approval from higher up the chain of command. That information will no doubt come to light within the next few days, but what is obvious is that – contrary to the impression which Harriet Sherwood is obviously trying to give – this was a pre-planned ambush of Israeli forces working inside Israeli territory.
The most recent information on today’s clashes on Israel’s Northern border, between the IDF and the Lebanese Army, is as follows (most of which is courtesy of the excellent reporting from the journalists at the site, The Muqata, and other highly reliable sources):
The attack by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) against the IDF was unprovoked, and took place in Israeli territory (above photo) along Israeli’s Northern border. In some areas, there is a gap between the IDF security fence and the actual border, which is where this attack took place. IDF soldiers were conducting routine maintenance work including clearing bushes from the area – activity designed to keep an open line of sight, and to prevent attacks and kidnappings like the one in the summer of 2006, which was in a similar location.
- The IDF’s work on the fence was fully coordinated with UNIFIL
- A Lebanese sniper opened fire towards IDF forces in violation of UN security council resolution 1701
- The IDF retaliated with artillery and helicopter fire
- The LAF opened fire not at the soldiers who were doing the routine maintainance work on the fence, but at the commanders who were standing nearby observing the work, which would suggest, anyway, that it was a preplanned attack not in reaction to the work on the fence
- It is known that some elements of the LAF are influenced by Hezbollah
- After the initial exchange of fire, the LAF requested that the IDF suspend their fire so that they could evacuate their wounded. Roughly half an hour into the ceasefire, LAF shot an RPG at an IDF tank. They missed the tank and the IDF tank returned fire
- IDF only opened fire in response to their soldiers being shot at and wounded
- One IDF soldier was killed and another critically wounded
- Three LAF soldiers were killed
- This clash represents the most serious incident along the northern border since 2006
This essay, by Danny Ayalon, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, was published in The Wall Street Journal.
A Palestinian refugee collects metal and plastic objects at a garbage dump in the Palestinian refugee camp of Beddawi near Tripoli.
A couple of years ago, a Palestinian refugee camp was encircled and laid siege to by an army of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. Attacks initiated by Palestinian militants triggered an overwhelming response from the army that took the life of almost 500 people, including many civilians. International organizations struggled to send aid to the refugee camps, where the inhabitants were left without basic amenities like electricity and running water. During the conflict, six U.N. personnel were killed when their car was bombed.
Government ministers and spokesmen tried to explain to the international community that the Palestinian militants were backed by Syria and global jihadist elements. Al Qaeda condemned the government and the army, declaring that the attack was part of a “crusade” against their Palestinian brothers.
While most will assume that the events described above took place in the West Bank or Gaza, they actually took place in Lebanon in the summer of 2007, when Palestinian terrorists attacked the Lebanese Army, which struck back with deadly force. The scene of most of the fighting was the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Northern Lebanon, which was home to the Islamist Fatah al-Islam, a group that has links with al Qaeda.
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Margie in Tel Aviv
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Hadar Sela
The little women’s flotilla
August 10, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Comment is Free, Flotilla, Guardian, Hamas, Lebanon | by Margie in Tel Aviv | 9 comments
Lebanon has been threatening since the ill-fated Turkish flotilla to send its own version of this summer’s high profile efforts to demonize Israel. At one stage it was a journalist’s ship with room for no more than seventeen passengers and at others it has been a ‘woman’s flotilla’ - or more correctly, a single ship, called variously, Mariam, Julia, or Junia.
The Guardian’s essay mentions two ships Mariam, the first an all-woman ship and Naji Ali, presumably a journalists’ ship.
As Elias Youssef Bejjani, writing for International Analyst Network, has argued:
If the ship does indeed exist, whether it has permission to leave or to dock is also not clear.
But al-Haj says the mission is purely humanitarian.
Considering that the Lebanese government is at pains not to have any dealings with Israel it is not clear how that is supposed to be done.
Asked on Radio A-Shams by Zohair Bahloul why the ship, Mariam, would only be carrying women, [Al Hajj] said,
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