Hizbullah no longer a terror group? Despite extensive public relations efforts to depict Hizbullah as a murderous terror group, an IDF presentation prepared for the benefit of foreigners refers to the Lebanese organization as a guerilla movement, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.
The computer presentation was distributed by e-mail to all of Israel's military attaches worldwide, as well as to foreign military attaches in Israel and to a series of other foreigners.
In the presentation, a recent Hizbullah attack on an army force near the village of Rajar, on Israel's northern border, is described as a clash with “guerilla fighters.”
Sources at defense establishment who saw the presentation were stunned to see that the IDF killed 4 “Hizbullah guerilla fighters” in Rajat and later charged that the use of such terminology contradicts Israel’s official position that Hizbullah is a terror group.
Israeli sources maintain that Hizbullah cannot be classified as a guerilla organization because it targets civilians, as well as troops, and because guerilla war is usually aimed against a foreign occupier.
Referring to Hizbullah's “vile terrorists” as guerilla fighters amounts to legitimization of their activity and misrepresents the group’s true nature, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday in response to the report.
The IDF's Spokesperson Office, meanwhile, admitted that "the term 'guerilla fighter' is indeed at odds with the IDF's public relations policy, which perceives Hizbullah as a terror organization."
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