more in sorrow than in anger--Israeli cluster bombs litter south Lebanese landscape

Amiram Finkel searches for pellets from katushya rocket
landed in the fields of Kibbutz Afek, between Haifa and Akko.
(photo credit: Walter Ruby)


I remember during my visit to northern Israel six weeks ago, standing in a field in my cousins' kibbutz and my cousin Raya's husband Amiram Finkel showing me a crater where a katushya rocket had landed in the kibbuz field. The crater was flooded with little metal pellets, carefully packed into the rocket to spray outward upon impact at bullet-like speed and kill as many Israelis as possible. In Haifa, I saw cars that were filled with holes caused by the flying pellets and could only imagine that if the pellets could slice through metal in that way, what kind of horrendous damage what they would do to human skin and organs. I remember wondering what kind of monsters could be so hateful as to fill the bombs with these pellets with premeditation and with a clear purpose to kill and maim the maximum possible number of Israelis.

Now read the link below in today's Washington Post, a long report about the deadly--and very similar effect unexploded Israeli cluster bombs--most of them supplied by the U.S.--are having on the people of southern Lebanon six weeks after the cease-fire was declared

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501500.html

The report points out that as many as one million of the bomblets are lying unexploded across southern Lebanon and have already killed 14 Lebanese and wounded 90 since the end of the fighting, one to three people a day. Fear of being torn apart by the bomblets is preventing south Lebanese, who live from agriculture, from returning to their orchards, and therefore will almost certainly prevent many of them from resuming their liveleihoods. Apparently 90 percent of the cluster bombs were fired in the last 72 hours before the cease-fire and may have been deliberately done to leave a "lasting legacy" in south Lebanon--i.e. to prevent the population from returning.

When asked for a response, all the IDF spokesman could come up with was a bland "All the weapons and munitions used by the IDF are legal under international law and their use conforms with international standards." Well its reassuring to know these bomblets are legal and conforming with international standards--whatever that means--as they blow apart people's bodies long after the fighting is supposed to be over. I guess we can be comforted that only 14 Lebanese have been killed so far, though I bet a lot of those who were wounded lost arms or legs. I wonder how many of them were kids.

I can already hear my friends Sam Kliger, Alex Koifman and Dima Zabarko condemning me for making a false "moral equivalency" between Israeli modes of killing and Hezbollah ones. Well, I suspect I am not be the only person in the world--not even among Israel-loving Jews-- who would come to the conclusion that covering south Lebanon with one million cluster bombs that blow peoples' bodies apart IS EXACTLY MORALLY EQUIVALENT to packing katushyas with pellets that tear apart human flesh. The cluster bombs and the pellet filled katushyas do exactly the same thing, except the cluster bombs are more sophisticated and will go on killing for months or years to come. In this case, it is even impossible to make the argument so favored by Israel's defenders during the war that Hizbollah intentionally set out to kill civilians, whereas Israel did not try to kill civilians, except that they were killed accidentally because the Hezbollah fighters hid in civilian areas. Question: If Israel did not intent to kill and maim civilians long after the fighting was over, why the f--- did it barrage southern Lebanon with a million cluster bombs during the last 72 hours of the war?

So, tragically, as much as we would like to reassure ourselves otherwise, there IS very much a moral equivalency here, a moral equivalency in which civilians on both sides are fair game to be blown to pieces. It is for Jews who love Israel to step forward and say forthrightly, 'The use of cluster bombs against civilians is morally wrong and un-Jewish and must never happen again". American Jews should also demand that the U.S. stop selling these horrible weapons to Israel and every other state.