Israeli Justice Minister: IDF entitled to Kill Everyone in South Lebanon.
From the BBC today:
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon “said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in.
He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah supporter. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” Mr Ramon said.
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Ramon made these comments on Israeli Army radio. He was apparently not asked about the IDF’s practice of blowing up the cars full of civilians fleeing south Lebanon.
Ramon has made stark the standards that the Israelis are using, and there is no excuse for any American politician or citizen to continue denying that the Israelis are not intentionally targeting civilians en masse.
[BOVARD]
I’m reminded of an article from an Israeli newspaper that I commented on several years ago:
“Herut MK Michael Kleiner outraged MKs when he proposed to Sharon that the IDF carpet bomb Palestinian cities. He was responding to Sharon’s request that the MKs in the committee propose ways to deal with the terror problem. When Sharon said Israel has no intention of harming the civilian population that is not involved in terror, Kleiner interrupted. “Are the 100,000 people who attended Salah Shehadeh’s funeral innocent?”
Kleiner explained that a quick victory was within reach if Israel took the right steps. “Just like the Americans bombed the German city of Dresden in World War II, and they bombed Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, we should do the same.” He proposed an IDF plane drop leaflets warning people to leave their homes in time, and that the bridges to Jordan be kept open “because after the bombing the people won’t have anywhere to return.”
Sharon angrily shot down the idea. “I would never do such horrible things. That would be an enormous mistake. You do it when you’re prime minister,” he said to Kleiner. MK Ran Cohen, chairman of the committee, summed up, “Kleiner’s proposal is as disgusting as the suicide bombings.”
Sadly, Sharon (who was far less ruthless in office than his history had led me to expect) is gone, and while Kleiner isn’t the Prime Minister, Olmert seems to be just as bad.
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