Israel Military Policy Under Fire After Lebanon's Qana Massacre

Buzzflash points us to The Forward, a Jewish weekly in New York, which talks about the questions and comments arising from last weekend's Qana Massacre in Lebanon and the Israeli military's policies that I think is definitely worth a read. Snippet here:

As Jerusalem defends itself against worldwide condemnation over a deadly air strike that killed dozens of Lebanese children, current and former Israeli officials acknowledge that the Israeli military has loosened the restrictions on targeting militants in populated areas.

After an Israeli air force raid Sunday on the Lebanese village of Qana left dozens of civilians dead, many of them children, human rights groups accused Israel of committing a "war crime." Many critics — including Israeli ones — are questioning the military's policy of bombing in densely populated Lebanese areas. As of earlier this week, more than 550 civilians had been killed in Lebanon during the current conflict, with Lebanese officials claiming that the civilian death toll has exceeded 750.

Following the Qana deaths, Israeli authors and intellectuals signed a petition calling for an immediate cease-fire and protesting the killing of civilians. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel called for an official commission of inquiry to investigate the military's bombing policies in Lebanon.

One of Israel's top political commentators, Nahum Barnea of Yediot Aharonot, also raised questions in his column Monday. "I am ashamed," wrote Barnea, whose criticism reverberated in Israel this week. Barnea argued that just because he feels that the war is justified "does not grant me an exemption from torturing myself with questions." The most piercing question, he wrote, "arose when I heard Defense Minister Amir Peretz boasting about how he has freed the army from limitations regarding the civilian population that lives alongside Hezbollah. One can understand the accidental killing of civilians, in the heat of battle. A sweeping order regarding the civilian population of South Lebanon and the Shi'ite neighborhoods of Beirut is rash, injudicious and will lead to disaster. We saw the results yesterday, with the bodies of women and children being brought out of the bombed house in Qana."

Barnea was referring to several statements that Peretz, leader of the left-of-center Labor Party, made in the course of the past three weeks, saying that he had directed the Israeli military not to be deterred by Hezbollah's use of civilians as "human shields." Other Israeli officials also indicated that the military's rules of engagement in the current fighting in Lebanon are more permissive than they have been in the past. Some said that Israel is attempting to "inflict pain" on Lebanon's civilian population to put public pressure on Hezbollah to disarm.