It takes considerable talent to describe Hamas\u2019s firing of primitive\u00a0\u201crockets\u201d that to date have indirectly killed one person (she died of a heart attack) as a \u201cwar crime,\u201d while describing Israel\u2019s killing to date of 120 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, and its systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure, as mere \u201ccollective punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s what one has come to expect from\u00a0 HRW. \u00a0In 2008 HRW issued a report entitled\u00a0FLOODING SOUTH LEBANON:\u00a0Israel\u2019s use of cluster munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006<\/em>.\u00a0 The\u00a0report found that Israel dropped as many as 4.6 million cluster submunitions\u00a0on south Lebanon during the 2006 war.\u00a0\u00a0It was \u2013 in HRW\u2019s words \u2013 \u201cthe most extensive use of\u00a0cluster munitions anywhere in the world since the 1991 Gulf war,\u201d while relative\u00a0to the size of the targeted area the density of the attack was historically\u00a0unprecedented.\u00a0\u00a0 Some 90 percent of these cluster munitions were dropped during the final three days \u201cwhen\u00a0Israel knew a settlement was imminent\u201d (HRW), the U.N. ceasefire resolution having\u00a0already been passed but not yet gone into effect.\u00a0 But, although finding that Israel committed \u201cextensive violations\u201d of the\u00a0laws of war, HRW did not go beyond stating that Israel\u2019s massive resort\u00a0to cluster munitions was \u201cin some locations possibly a war crime,\u201d even as the evidence HRW itself assembled conclusively showed\u00a0that Israel was targeting civilian population centers.<\/p>\n HRW now says that targeting the civilian homes of Hamas militants constitutes mere collective punishment. \u00a0So, let\u2019s see.\u00a0 Israel prides itself on having a citizen army.\u00a0\u00a0Virtually every civilian dwelling<\/em>\u00a0in Israel contains a family member who is either in the army or the reserves.\u00a0\u00a0 If Hamas had precision missiles, issued an\u00a0official\u00a0warning that\u00a0henceforth\u00a0it would be targeting every civilian dwelling in Israel, and then proceeded to do just that, would HRW call it mere \u201ccollective punishment\u201d?<\/p>\n www.hrw.org\/news\/2014\/07\/09\/palestineisrael-indiscriminate-palestinian-rocket-attacks<\/a><\/p>\n