Spontaneous Monotony

Despite criticism from Israel and the USA, the UN Human Rights Council (on which the USA does not have a veto, or even a seat, and is therefore unable to censor criticism of Israel) has voted to start an investigation into a variety of alleged abuses – the resolution uses terms such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massacres – by Israel against innocent civilians in Lebanon.

It does not, however, mention Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli civilians (much to the righteous fury of Israel and its supporters). There’s a very simple reason for that. Israel has killed over 1000 people – and just 58 (0.05%) were Hezbollah personnel who could be considered legitimate targets. Despite the use of sophisticated unmanned drones to identify targets, the Israelis claim that atrocities such as the attack on Qana are accidental.

Hezbollah has killed 123 people. The difference is that 82 (66%) of them have been IDF personnel who could be considered legitimate targets.

Killing 1000+ innocent people is worse than killing 41. It’s about time that Israel stopped getting away with it.

See Also

• Full text of UN Human Rights Council resolution (direct link to download – 123kb PDF)
• UN Human Rights Council website

According to the BBC, Tony Blair has said that a UN resolution to bring the bombing of Lebanon to an end could be agreed within 24 hours. He said the same a few days ago – but the Russians and French objected to a draft which was essentially a ratification of Israel’s demands that it be allowed to continue its occupation of Lebanese territory.

Of course, given his unswerving obedience to his masters in Washington (which has destroyed Britain’s credibility on the international stage), it is surely no coincidence that the negotiations have moved on now that poodle has gone off on holiday!

[EDIT] BBC News 24 are saying that the Russian Ambassador to the UN is planning to present a resolution calling for a 72-hour humanitarian truce to allow aid to get through, given the impasse over the ceasefire resolution.[/EDIT]

As a result of the security alerts, there is massive disruption to airports across the UK (especially Heathrow, which is partially closed and which several airlines have cancelled flights to). So what? Since the alternative would be to close all airports completely (as the US did after the September 11th, 2001 attacks), surely a seriously disrupted flight is better than no flight at all?

Not to mention the fact that these extra security measures will, in all likelihood, last for days and weeks rather than months and years (ie until the police are satisfied that they have dealt with the threat). This operation has also seen a departure from the unnecessary killings that have made ‘anti-terror operations’ inspire fear in and of themselves – 21 24 people have been arrested, and none have been shot. This also shows that is entirely possible to prevent terrorism without enormously expensive (£21 billion? How many extra police or MI5 people could that pay for?) and privacy-destroying ID cards. Good on the police.

[EDIT] There has of course been no independent verification of this, so it is of course theoretically possible that it could all have been fabricated, but I’ll need some evidence to suggest that before I listen to the conspiracy theorists.[/EDIT]

See Also:

• BBC News – ‘Airlines terror plot’ disrupted
• Wikinews – Police in Britain claim to have disrupted a terrorist attack