PR Disaster

The Israeli attack on Qana which killed at least 37 children was not only a trajedy, but a PR disaster for Israel. According to Washington Post story by Anthony Shadid, Edward Cody and Robin Wright.
Israeli warplanes blasted a group of buildings in this southern Lebanese village Sunday, killing more than 50 people, most of them women and children, according to Lebanese officials. The Israeli military said the airstrike was aimed at destroying Hezbollah rocket launchers nearby and that civilians were not being targeted.
I feel confident that this Israeli claim is in fact true, but it's not getting much sympathy anywhere except on Israeli TV and Fox News. The fact that Israel started the war by smashing up almost all the Lebanese civilian infrastructure alienated even many people (like me) disposed to give Israel the benefit of the doubt.

Israel had a small army of smooth talking diplomats blanketing the airwaves this morning, but I found it hard to credit the notion that the slaughter was a Hizbullah war crime.

It doesn't help that:
Qana was the site of another attack by Israeli missile fire 10 years ago that killed 106 civilians at an U.N. observer post during an earlier round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah
.
By way of explanation, Israel broadcast some video of rockets and buildings.
Military video reportedly captured by a drone aircraft was later released to broadcast on U.S. networks that showed a truck moving into a building for shelter and rockets being fired after dark, but it as not clear where that building was in relation to the buildings that housed the refugees in Qana or if it was related to the Qana incident.

Another Israeli military spokeswoman said that Lebanese villages south of Tyre were warned days in advance to leave the area.

If somebody says to me, get out of town, I'm going to blow up your house, I might well leave, but that won't convince me they were any more justified.

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