Cox News Rewrites Hezbollah-Israel War
by Lee Green
On April 30, 2007, the Cox News Service distributed an article by Craig Nelson that includes a terribly inaccurate and biased description of 2006's Hezbollah-Israel war. In the San Francisco Chronicle, the article is headlined "Leaked war report heats up calls for Olmert to resign." The majority of the article is a fair description of reactions to the Winograd report, an Israeli investigation of the Olmert government's handling of the war. However, the last three paragraphs of Nelson's article summarize the war and unfortunately include inaccuracies and distortions. The three paragraphs state:
"Last summer's conflict began July 12, when Hezbollah fighters kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid. When an Israeli armored unit struck back across the frontier an hour later, five more troops were killed. Hours later, Israeli warplanes began striking targets throughout Lebanon.
The 34-day military campaign ended Aug. 11, three days after the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1701, which called for an enlarged U.N. peacekeeping force to maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon.
The fighting left 159 Israelis dead. About 1,109 Lebanese civilians and 28 Lebanese troops were killed."
* The article doesn't mention that Hezbollah started the war by first shooting Katyusha rockets and mortars into Israeli communities. It was a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from another Hezbollah unit that subsequently crossed into Israel, abducting the two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) and killing three others.
* In addition, while it points out that Israeli warplanes hit targets in Lebanon, it ignores the fact that thousands of Hezbollah rockets rained down on Israel during the war, forcing over a million Israelis to flee their homes or live in bomb shelters for weeks.
* It says Israeli warplanes began striking "targets throughout Lebanon," seeming to imply that virtually all of Lebanon was attacked by Israel . Actually, Israel primarily targeted Hezbollah fighters, Hezbollah infrastructure, sites of rocket launchers, as well as routes to Syria that could be used for resupply or to take the Israeli soldiers out of Lebanon. In contrast, Hezbollah randomly fired on Israel, making no attempt to single out military targets and spare civilians.
* Its description of UN Resolution 1701 fails to note the very important part that called for "the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers."
* The death tally is completely inaccurate and biased. It states that "about 1,109 Lebanese civilians and 28 Lebanese troops were killed," while noting that "the fighting left 159 Israelis dead."
- Israel was not fighting "Lebanese troops," but Hezbollah. Moreover, even Hezbollah sources say that hundreds of Hezbollah combatants -- not 28 -- were killed. According to a December 15, 2006 Associated Press report, the deputy chief of Hezbollah's politburo, Mahmoud Komati, said that at least 250 Hezbollah militants were killed during the war. And Israel estimated that they had killed between 500-600 Hezbollah fighters, and was even able to identify 440 of them by name and address. Taking this into account, the tally of 1109 Lebanese civilians and 28 Lebanese troops is obviously inaccurate by any measure. There were far fewer civilians and many more Hezbollah fighters. For CAMERA's research on how many from Hezbollah were killed during the war, click here .
Of the approximately 1137 Lebanese reportedly killed (other reports say 1187), most or about half were likely Hezbollah combatants. Many civilians were killed because Hezbollah illegally launched rockets from within residential areas, drawing Israeli fire, and in general used civilians as human shields. For more info on Hezbollah's human shields, see this report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies.
- The article breaks down the Lebanese death tally by civilians and troops, while it makes no such distinction of civilians vs soldiers with the Israeli dead.
(According to the December 5, 2006 Jerusalem Post, there were 39 Israeli civilians killed and 120 Israeli soldiers. )
For more background info on the Hezbollah-Israel War, click here. For a timeline of Hezbollah violence, click here.
Below is the entire original Cox article. The bolded parts are the items deleted by the San Francisco Chronicle editor.
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BRACES FOR FIGHT TO SAVE JOB AS WAR REPORT ISSUED
By CRAIG NELSON
Cox News Service
JERUSALEM -Prime Minister Ehud Olmert braced himself Sunday for a bitter fight to save his job after portions of a long-awaited government report criticizing his handling of last summer's war in Lebanon were disclosed to local media and the clamor for his resignation swelled.
Quoting from what they said were leaked copies of the report, local television stations reported over the weekend that a government-appointed panel investigating Israel's prosecution of the war had sharply criticized Olmert, describing his actions as "rash" and "misguided" and saying he lacked an "organized plan" for the Lebanon operation against the radical Islamic group Hezbollah.
Allegations that Olmert and his defense minister, Amir Peretz, demonstrated a woeful lack of military acumen and badly mismanaged the war prompted renewed calls for both men to step down. Both onetime allies and longtime foes joined the chorus.
Former Cabinet minister Ofir Pines, a member of Peretz's Labor Party, advised the pair to follow the example of Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the military chief of staff during the war who quit in January in the face of criticism of his performance from both inside and outside the military.
"I expect the prime minister and the defense minister to stand up and take responsibility and resign," Pines told Army Radio.
Gideon Saar, of the opposition Likud, did not stop there: He urged Olmert's entire 26-member cabinet to quit.
"The government is the body in charge of the military campaign and the government failed," Saar told Israel Radio.
While Olmert's aides insisted that he had no intention of stepping down, the prime minister himself put off comment until today's (EDS: Monday) scheduled release of the Winograd Commission's preliminary findings.
"We cannot discuss what has been leaked. We shall wait for the report, read it and study it and then respond," Olmert reportedly told a meeting of ministers from his own Kadima party.
The aftermath of last summer's war with Hezbollah is not the only source of Olmert's political travails, which see his popularity ratings, according to some polls, in the record low single digits. He is the subject of at least three corruption investigations.
Despite these woes, Olmert's immediate resignation is unlikely, analysts said. The five-member commission has no authority to order or recommend resignation, or file criminal charges.
"Olmert will not resign unless there's a smoking gun, and since this commission is part of a political process not a criminal investigation, it is unlikely to produce one," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
A revolt by members of his own Kadima party, keen to avert catastrophe at the polls, could change the equation. So could the expected replacement of the unpopular Peretz as head of the Labor Party later this month - possibly by an emboldened successor who could topple Olmert by yanking Labor from the governing coalition.
Finally, public opinion could grow so toxic towards Olmert that he has "no choice" but eventually to resign, said Yossi Avigor, a 30-year-old army reservist who fought for two weeks in southern Lebanon last summer.
"The commission has no teeth, but in the end, Israelis don't want a prime minister who was so quick to go to war and don't want a defense minister who doesn't understand the military," said Avigor, a member of a group of reservists critical of the government's conduct during the war.
Last summer's conflict began July 12, when Hezbollah fighters kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid. When an Israeli armored unit struck back across the frontier an hour later, five more troops were killed. Hours later, Israeli warplanes began striking targets throughout Lebanon.
The 34-day military campaign ended Aug. 11, three days after the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 1701, which called for an enlarged U.N. peacekeeping force to maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon.
The fighting left 159 Israelis dead, including 116 soldiers and 43 civilians. About 1,109 Lebanese civilians and 28 Lebanese troops were killed. There are no reliable figures for Hezbollah fatalities, with estimates ranging from 250 to more than 530 dead.
Despite the cost in blood, Olmert failed to achieve his stated goals of freeing the two captured Israeli soldiers and destroying Hezbollah, which fired 3,699 Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, according to the Israeli police.
Amid widespread public dismay here about the outcome and complaints by Israeli soldiers that they had lacked proper training and sufficient food and ammunition during the fighting, Olmert appointed the commission, headed by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd.
The panel's preliminary report will cover the period from Israel's pullout from southern Lebanon in 2000 through the first five days of the war. According to the Israeli media, it criticizes Peretz, who had never held a military post before being named defense minister, for failing to use the resources of the defense establishment and opting instead to use outside advisers.
It also accuses Halutz of underestimating the threat of Katyushas, quashing dissenting views in the military and failing to offer military options to senior officials.
Olmert has acknowledged that the military campaign revealed "failures and faults." But disputing allegations that his actions were hasty and ill-considered, he has said his government was unanimous in its decision to go to war.
He also has said the war succeeded in pushing Hezbollah fighters away from Israel's border. However, critics say that the Israeli military's inability to halt the rocket barrage has weakened the country's deterrence.
The commission's final report is due out this summer. It will analyze the entire campaign, including the controversial decision by Olmert and Peretz to order the Israeli army to take control of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River with the U.N. cease-fire resolution already approved.
In the 48 hours before the truce went into effect, 33 soldiers perished -- nearly a quarter of all Israeli troops killed during the war.
Originally Published on 5/1/2007 for CAMERA