Israel, destroyer of Lebanon, poses as its savior

 

Tamara Nassar -6 August 2020

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.

 Sebastian ScheinerAP 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 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.

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 threatens to destroy Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure as it has done time and again.

During the 2006 invasion, 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 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 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,” 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 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, 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.

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