Rocket Villages
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi spent Monday in Italy on an official visit. (Italian forces are currently deployed in southern Lebanon as part of UNIFIL.) During the visit, he discussed what Hezbollah is up to lately. “Hezbollah duplicates sections of southern Lebanon underground, and is building an underground infrastructure of command centers and rocket launchers, mostly within the Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, as well as other parts of Lebanon,” he said. “...[T]hroughout Lebanon, including in southern Lebanon, residential villages were turned into ’surface-to-surface rocket villages,’ while Hezbollah is taking advantage of the local population and [also taking advantage of] the lack of UNIFIL’s mandated authority, to strengthen its command centers and rocket launchers inside the villages.”
Ashkenazi used one village, al-Khiam, as an example of the way Hezbollah is using Lebanese civilians as human shields as they prepare for the next attack on Israel. This kind of thing is right out of the old-school Arafat-PLO playbook, which set the norm of placing arms caches under kindergartens and inside hospitals.
The IDF has posted a digital reconstruction of the village of al-Khiam to illustrate what Hezbollah's done to the neighborhood. Here it is.
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Re: Rocket Villages
Wow. The IDF really just does not give a damn whether anyone in Turkey understands what it is trying to say, does it? Or perhaps it is simply not paying sufficient attention to regional events to know that YouTube is blocked in Turkey? Can I say this again? YouTube is blocked in Turkey. I could watch that, but I'd have to be really motivated -- I'd have to ask you to send the URL, find a proxy server, deal with slow load times, etc. etc. -- and technically, break the law.
The Turkish people do not know and cannot know what's really going on in the region, unless they're part of the .0000001 percent of the Turkish population that speaks fluent English or Hebrew, has lots of time on his hands to surf the Internet and explore these questions, knows how to use proxy browsers, and would spontaneously think to check out the IDF website.
Judith, how can it be that we're seriously talking about the prospect of regional war breaking out in "weeks or months," but the IDF is making no serious effort to communicate with this region?
Re: Rocket Villages
Claire, I have no good answer for you. I wish I did.
Re: Rocket Villages
Meanwhile, here's what the Turkish media is featuring. Note that it's in Turkish, not hosted on YouTube, and the prominent "share on Facebook" button. You cannot entirely blame the irresponsibility of the Turkish media; their time is limited; they're on deadlines; and they don't speak English either. If someone gives them ready-for-broadcast material like this, of course they'll use it in preference to an IDF video they can't understand. Note that the makers of this video were shrewd enough not to add a cheesy soundtrack that practically screams, "propaganda." Turks are incredibly aware that no one tells them the truth, and they want to know the truth. Every single Turk I have spoken to, every last one, has expressed to me the sentiment that he can't understand what's happening and believes there's more to the story than is being reported here. But they are likewise highly sensitive--indeed paranoid--about the possibility of being manipulated by foreign powers. It's stupid to fuel this paranoia by putting out videos that look like propaganda. And the stupidity of failing to translate them into Turkish? Court-martial level.
May '10
Re: Rocket Villages
Whenever I read stuff like this, I always wonder if the civilians are complicit or have been intimidated into staying after their town was invaded. Do you know, Judith?
Re: Rocket Villages
Aaron, I know much less about what goes on in Lebanon, but in the case of the Palestinians, I've heard and read many times of instances where civilians went along with bad situations for fear of being labeled a collaborator with Israel. Such a label can result in beatings, intimidation, ostracism, and death.
This has been known to reach extraordinary extremes. There's one case I read about recently in which a few terrorists had holed themselves up in a Palestinian elementary school. The IDF wanted to get the teachers and children out first and then deal with the terrorists, but the teachers were so frightened of retribution that they refused to cooperate in any way with the Israelis. (The Israelis did eventually get them out safely by using smoke shields.) Objecting to whatever Hamas or Hezbollah decides is in their own interest -- installing a rocket launcher in your front yard, for instance -- means you're siding with the enemy, and in Gaza, "collaborators" have been known to be dragged out of their houses, driven to dirt roads and shot to death.