Human Rights Watch Not Feeling the Love

Hat's off to Human Rights Watch for managing to steam off both Israel and Lebanon with a pair of reports detailing war crimes by both sides during last summer's war.

First, HRW officials were nearly run out of Beirut on a rail last week after releasing a report that said that Hizballah directed many of its rocket attacks last summer against civilian targets in Israel. Unsurprisingly, Hizballah's Al Manar television led the charge, but strangely enough Prime Minister Fouad Siniora -- Hizballah's bitter political foe -- took a sucker punch as well. "It is impermissible to put the killers and the killed on the same level," he said in a statement. HRW cancelled plans to hold a press conference, citing an "overwhelming climate of intimidation" after the hotel where the event was to be held changed its mind at the last minute.

The Israelis behaved more professionally when HRW released a report this week in Jerusalem saying that indiscriminate Israeli attacks led to hundreds of unnecessary civilian deaths. The usual official spokesmen appeared with the indignant variations on the "Israel has to defend itself" theme, but no one tried to kill the messenger, so to speak.

Unfortunately, HRW's report veered towards comedy with some of its recommendations. The idea that the Lebanese government is going to open a criminal investigation into Hizballah's actions is laughable considering the Lebanese government has been under a 9-month Hizballah-led siege. And they have got to be kidding to think that the US would suspend arms shipments to Israel until the Jewish state brings its military tactics into compliance with international law. The Bush administration just promised a big increase in weapons sales to Israel despite evidence that Israel violated its agreement not to use US-made cluster bombs on civilian areas.

Did I say comedy? Perhaps I should have said tragedy.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut