[News] Israel, destroyer of Lebanon, poses as its savior

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-destroyer-lebanon-poses-its-savior
Israel,
destroyer of Lebanon, poses as its savior

Tamara Nassar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar> - 6
August 2020
------------------------------
[image: Smiling girl writes on munition as others look on]

Israeli girls in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, write messages on heavy
artillery shells before they are fired into Lebanon, 17 July 2006. Israel’s
attack that summer targeted civilians and infrastructure, causing massive
death and destruction.
AP Photo

Even amidst catastrophe, Israel’s hypocrisy knows no bounds.

A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 135 people,
injuring more than 5,000 and displacing hundreds of thousands.

The death toll is likely to climb as rescue workers search the devastated
Lebanese capital.

The blast left little unscathed, as citizens posted pictures and videos of
shattered homes, damaged cars and collapsed buildings across the city.

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation. Lebanese officials
linked
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-warehouse-idCAKCN2511G7>
it to 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored for the past six years in
warehouses at the port without safety precautions.

Now, Israel is exploiting the tragedy to erase its own crimes against
Lebanon, distract from military occupation and polish its image – a
propaganda strategy called bluewashing
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bluewashing>.
Bluewashing

Israel announced it was offering Lebanon humanitarian aid through
diplomatic channels.

“This is the time to transcend conflict,” the official account of the
Israeli military tweeted.

On Wednesday evening, Tel Aviv even lit up its city hall with the Lebanese
flag.

The breathtaking hypocrisy was not lost on Twitter users who posted
notorious images taken during Israel’s 2006 invasion showing Israeli
children writing messages on artillery shells before the army fired them
into Lebanon.

“Will your gift baskets be signed just like your missiles?” One social
media user wrote.

The offers of “humanitarian” aid come from the same country that has killed
and injured tens of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and
regularly <https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1286692803305766912> threatens
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-lebanon-iran/lebanon-accuses-israel-of-threatening-civilian-infrastructure-idUSKCN1UI2SJ>
to destroy
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ten-years-after-last-lebanon-war-israel-warns-next-one-will-be-far-worse/2016/07/23/58d7a6ca-4388-11e6-a76d-3550dba926ac_story.html>
Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure as it has done time and again.

During the 2006 invasion
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-funds-firm-supplying-israel-banned-cluster-weapons>,
Israel fired more than a million cluster munitions into the country.

“What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster
bombs,” an Israeli army officer told <https://www.haaretz.com/1.4865651>
the Tel Aviv newspaper *Haaretz*.

In the course of that war, Israel dropped some 7,000 bombs and missiles,
and bombarded all parts of Lebanon by land and naval artillery as well.

More than 1,100 people were killed and some 4,400 injured, the vast
majority civilians.

An investigation
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/05/why-they-died/civilian-casualties-lebanon-during-2006-war#>
by Human Rights Watch completely debunked Israel’s claims that the
horrifying toll was as a result of “collateral damage” because Hizballah
fighters were hiding among civilians or using them as “human shields.”

Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel indiscriminately targeted civilian
areas – a strategy known as the “Dahiya Doctrine
<https://imeu.org/article/the-dahiya-doctrine-and-israels-use-of-disproportionate-force>,”
after the southern suburb of Beirut that Israel deliberately flattened.

And Israeli leaders frequently threaten to do it again.

In 2018, for example, Yisrael Katz, a senior member of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, threatened
<https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5087166,00.html> to bomb
Lebanon to the “Stone Age” and “the age of cavemen.”

And just days ago, after claiming that Hizballah fighters had attempted to
attack the Israeli army across the border, Netanyahu alluded to the 2006
war.

The Israeli leader said on 27 July
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-hezbollah-is-playing-with-fire-any-attack-to-be-met-with-great-force/>,
that in 2006 Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah “made a big mistake in
testing Israel’s determination to defend itself, and the Lebanese state has
paid a heavy price for this.”

“I suggest he does not repeat this mistake,” Netanyahu added – a barely
veiled threat to repeat the same massive destruction.

Netanyahu repeated his threats just hours before the Beirut explosion.
Spreading rumors

For maximum propaganda value, Israel is reportedly insisting on keeping
Hebrew markings on any aid shipments that might reach Lebanon – although
Lebanon is almost certain to reject such aid.

Meanwhile, Israel rushed to spread baseless rumors blaming Hizballah for
the blast.

“Following the tragedy in Beirut, Israel has officially offered
humanitarian assistance to Lebanon,” 4IL, a propaganda outlet
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-army/27566>
of Israel’s strategic affairs ministry
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ministry-strategic-affairs>, tweeted.

“This comes despite the evidence the explosion stemmed from a storehouse of
Hizballah munitions,” the account added.

Absolutely no such evidence has come to light.
UN sells Israel

Israel regularly violates
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/lebanon-israel-violated-air-space-29-times-in-48-hours/1922581>
Lebanese airspace and sovereignty, flying unmanned aircraft and fighter
jets over the south of the country and even its capital
<https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/IAF-commander-Israel-first-to-use-F-35-jet-in-combat-558030>
.

Instead of condemning such violations and calling for justice for the
victims of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s
Middle East peace envoy, lauded Israel for offering aid:

Mladenov appeared to be cynically using the tragedy as an opportunity to
advance a political agenda of normalizing regional ties with Israel.

Israel’s Arabic-language propaganda Twitter account continued to put out
shameless assertions of “solidarity” with the Lebanese people:

Not everyone was on message, however.

Moshe Feiglin, the former deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, celebrated
<https://www.facebook.com/MFeiglin/posts/3225157277563365> the blast in
Beirut as “spectacular pyrotechnics show” and a “wonderful celebration”
coinciding with a date Jews mark as a holiday of love.

This is the same Feiglin who during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza proposed
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/concentrate-and-exterminate-israel-parliament-deputy-speakers-gaza-genocide-plan>
a plan to “concentrate” Palestinians in border camps and “exterminate” any
who resisted, while destroying all civilian housing and infrastructure.

But most Israeli politicians apparently got the memo that these sorts of
declarations are not the image Israel wants to send out.

Even as Israel lights up Tel Aviv city hall in a cynical display of
support, few Lebanese will forget that almost 14 years ago to the day,
Israel was lighting up Lebanon’s skies with missiles and bombs.

*Ali Abunimah contributed reporting.*
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