So, when Chipmunk Cheeks Nasrallah makes threats on TV from a hidden location deep in Lebanon, should we do anything more than laugh, loudly and scornfully?

Speaking on Lebanese television in a special broadcast marking two years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah said that the outcome of the war “affected Israel and the entire region.”

[...] Nasrallah accused Israel of planning to assassinate Hizbullah leaders, saying this would not deter Hizbullah from continuing its battle against Israel.

“I tell the Zionists: We don’t fear you. Say whatever you want and do whatever you want. We know that you are planning new assassinations of resistance leaders. But this will not make us retreat,” he said. “We are staying here and standing fast here.”

The Hizbullah leader went on to say that Israel was helpless in dealing with the Iranian Islamic Republic, and that even Israel recognizes its own inability to cope with the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

To review: He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he’s afraid to show up in public unless surrounded by thousands of civilians, knowing full well that Israel won’t drop bombs on him if there is a risk of killing women and children. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, yet he has been in hiding for years. He doesn’t fear Israel or the Zionists, and yet, he can’t walk in the open in downtown Beirut, his stomping grounds.

Yeah, “cognitive dissonance” is not a phrase bandied about much in NasrallahLand.

Given that a number of journalists have been killed or injured in the fighting between Russia and Georgia, Reporters without Borders (RSF) issued the following condemnation:

Only an impartial analysis of what happened would be able to prevent these kind of tragedies from recurring. Instead of reassuring the press, the Russian military is fostering an unacceptable climate of fear and danger.

Well actually, that’s not what Reporters without Borders, this is their statement about the current violence in Georgia:

This toll is already heavy and we appeal to all the parties involved to tell their forces to respect the work of the press and to ensure they do not target journalists.”

Note the general nature of their tone. At the point of this press release at least four journalists had been killed and a number of others injured and the fighting was continuing.

Contrast the tone with the RSF reacted when the IDF informed Reuters that it found no evidence of wrongdoing when an Israeli tank crew accidentally fired upon a Reuters reporter, Fadel Shana, killing him and a number of bystanders back in April.

First of all there’s the headline to the press release:

Israeli enquiry unsurprisingly decides not to punish soldiers who killed Palestinian cameraman

“unsurprisingly decides” is an interesting choice of words. It presumes that the IDF tank crew was culpable and that the available evidence made it a clear cut case that IDF investigators ignored. Then in the press release itself is the language that I altered above:

“Only an impartial analysis of what happened would be able to prevent this kind of tragedy from recurring. Instead of reassuring the press, the Israeli military is fostering an unacceptable climate of fear and danger.

“If journalists are wearing flak jackets, keeping a reasonable distance from the belligerents and clearly displaying press markings, there should be a change in the behaviour of the soldiers in areas where civilians, including journalists, are present.”

It has been four months since the incident. In the meantime no journalists that I’m aware of have been injured. But RSF’s attitude is that Israel is operating in a manner that regularly and needlessly endangers journalists. The accusatory tone and assumptions of RSF regarding Israel stands in sharp contrast to the plaintive tone of its release addressing the fighting in Georgia, where journalists were still endangered. (h/t Backspin)

Reuters itself, of course, was unsatisfied with the result of the Israeli inquiry. David Schlesinger, editor in chief of Reuters writes:

Said the report: “Two persons were spotted leaving the vehicle, carrying a large black object. The black object was placed on a tripod above a dirt mound, and directed at the tank…. The tank crew reported the spotting to its superiors. The latter authorized firing a tank shell at the characters, in light of the genuine suspicion that the object mounted on the tripod and directed at the tank was an anti-tank missile or mortar, a suspicion consistent with the characteristics of that day’s hostilities…”

I do understand the stresses of the battlefield.

To which Backspin responds:

Shana’s death is indeed a tragedy and Schlesinger is correct to treat as such. But it’s difficult to say that the Reuters editor really understands the stresses of the battlefield.

A tank crew that spends too much time trying to verify whether it’s looking at a tripod-mounted camera or anti-tank rocket launcher jeopardizes itself, conceding the initiative to “the unknown other.” Israel Matzav posted some photos showing that anti-tank weaponry like this Milan sometimes do resemble video equipment.

Dion Nissenbaum of McClatchy blogged:

Here is one particularly relevant factoid worth considering: Palestinian militants in Gaza have never used a serious anti-tank weapon with the range capable of hitting a target from a mile away.

That means that, even if Shana was preparing to fire a weapon, the Israeli soldiers should have known that they weren’t facing any real danger.

The Israeli general said that the soldiers weren’t able to determine if the item mounted on the tripod was a mortar, a camera or an anti-tank missile. For that reason, they opened fire.

If Israeli soldiers can’t distinguish a mortar tube from a mounted camera, their training is sorely lacking.
…
Fadel was on a road a mile away from the tank, he was driving a car with “TV” written on the side, he was wearing a flak jacket clearly marked with a “press” sticker, he had been filming for several minutes and was not working in an area of active fighting.

So he gives three main reasons why it should have clear that Fadel Shana posed no threat to the tank crew:
1) A “factoid” that no one in Gaza has anti-tank weapons capable of damaging a tank at that distance.
2) It should be easy (at the range of a mile) for a soldier to distinguish between a camera and an anti-tank weapon
and
3) Shana was clearly identifiable as a journalist.

I enlisted help of a number of bloggers who had responses to all three claims.
1) My Right Word left a comment that Nissenbaum’s “factoid” is wrong and that, in fact, terrorists in Gaza do possess weapons that would threaten a tank at the distance in question. For example:

December 2002. An IDF Engineering Corps soldier was moderately wounded and two civilians were lightly wounded when an anti-tank missile that was launched toward civilian targets on the Israel-Egypt border near Rafah, struck nearby them. The three were transferred for further medical treatment to Be’er Sheba.

Check out the comment for the complete response.

2) As noted above, Israel Matzav, produced a number of photos of anti-tank weapons and compared them to Shana’s camera. Read his complete response.

3) Elder of Ziyon e-mailed me a couple of photographs with comments which I will reproduce here:

Here is the shot that Fadel Shana took of the Israeli tank that killed him, fully zoomed in.

… a picture of the car that said “TV” on it that was supposedly so easy to see.

Elder of Ziyon writes further:

Unless the IDF has much, much better optics than Reuters, I cannot see how the IDF would be able to read “TV” on that car, let alone on a jacket, or even to distinguish a blue flak jacket from green fatigues in the dust of Gaza.

Nissenbaum also claimed that since Shana had been filming the tank for several minutes before the tank fired, it should have been clear that he posed no threat. But that assumes that the tank crew was aware of Shana’s presence and wasn’t engaged with any other threat at that time.

I do find it interesting that Nissenbaum is so dismissive of the Israeli investigation. In his infamous post about Samir Kuntar he ignored physical evidence and an eyewitness account to promote a defense of Kuntar.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Beirut-based political analyst and Hezbollah specialist, said people here simply don’t accept Israel’s version of events.

“I don’t think all Lebanese believe he actually killed the child,” she said.

Nissenbaum wrote no corrective that there was proof, he just let the Hezbollah mouthpiece deny that Kuntar was a murderer.

And yet here he is skeptical of the Israeli inquiry simply because it did reach the same conclusion he did based, in part, on a phony “factoid.”

In all three cases of RSF, of Reuters and of Dion Nissenbaum there was a presumption of Israeli negligence if not criminal intent. From what we know, it appears that the IDF deserves the benefit of the doubt in this case.

LGF and Snapped Shot have more.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Have I mentioned lately how thankful I am that my grandparents on my father’s side, and my great-grandparents on my mother’s side, left Russia and Latvia and came here?

“Mother Russia” my ass. “Master Russia” is the only fitting title. Mark Twain figured out the Russians a century ago. He wrote this in 1905:

We have the flies and the Russians, we cannot help it, let us not bemoan about it, but manfully accept the dispensation and do the best we can with it. Time will bring relief, this we know, for we have history for it. Nature had made many and many a mistake before she added flies and Russians, and always she corrected them as soon as she could. She will correct this one too — in time. Geological time.

[...] Even in our own day Russians could be made useful if only a way could be found to inject some intelligence into them. How magnificently they fight in Manchuria! With what indestructible pluck they rise up after the daily defeat, and sternly strike, and strike again! how gallant they are, how devoted, how superbly unconquerable! If they would only reflect! if they could only reflect! if they only had something to reflect with! Then these humble and lovable slaves would perceive that the splendid fighting-energy which they are wasting to keep their chipmunk on the throne would abolish both him and it if intelligently applied.

I think if he were writing today, he would not say much different about the Russians, who replaced their inherited Czar with an “elected” one.

Thanks again, Great-grandparents and Grandparents. When we meet in the world to come, I will do the equivalent of buying you a drink there.

Get a load of this Bizarro World UNIFIL general:

Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano on Thursday accused Israel of violating UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the Second Lebanon War.

In contrast, he said that the UN enjoyed excellent cooperation with Hizbullah and with the local Lebanese people.

And he isn’t joking.

During a press conference at the United Nations headquarters n New York, Graziano cited the IAF forays over Lebanon and the dispute over the village of Ghajar.

Graziano asserted that apart from UN troops, Lebanese soldiers and hunters, no one was armed south of the Litani River.

Nope. Not joking, just effing stupid. Blind. And oh yeah—let’s find out exactly why this paragon of asshole-ism thinks that there aren’t any weapons south of the Litani:

He conceded that his soldiers were not trying to prevent weapons smuggling from Syria as demanded by the UNSC because the Lebanese government had not requested such action.

Because he’s not looking for them. Well, gee. If you don’t look for something, of course you won’t find it. By the way, this schmuck has been blaming Israel for months. No wonder, when the Italian FM shills for Hamas, and UNIFIL doesn’t act on incidents like, say, Hezbullah threatening UNIFIL troops at gunpoint.

He’s supposedly on his way out. Buh-bye, moron.