And *we* will pursue and expose Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, Sarah Leah Whitson's letter to “Dear President Ahmadinejad" which begins with, “We [at HRW] are aware that you have recently expressed great concern about the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, citing in particular the large numbers of Lebanese civilian victims of this conflict.” HRW believes that Ahmadinejad can be reasoned with. Ms. Whitson seems unaware Ahmadinejad has repeatedly, unabashedly characterized Israel as a loathsome “tumor” whose civilians and non-civilians alike “must be wiped off the map” of the planet earth. Clearly, Sarah Leah Whitson is not unaware. Ahmadinejad's position on his disgust for Israel has been public for more than eight months. Both you and Sarah Leah Whitson are frauds. Behind your overpaid positions at HRW lies your lust for power, and, only you know how powerful you must feel when you denigrate Israel so that you could validate your puny existence. After the bombs fall, we will still be here. Where will you be, "Dr. Smith?" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23630 http://smoothstone.blogspot.com

Those photographs are truly disturbing. However the good died in the wool Zionists will not see them as such since they avoid the concept of "equivalence". In short, they shout and scream about Lebanese and Palestinian children being brought up to hold Israel in contempt, and yet believe that their own children writing messages on missiles is a simple act of patriotism. This is why the concept of holding thousands of Arab prisoners in Israeli jails is as nothing compared to the Hizbulla's kidnapping of two soldiers, or why Israel's expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians means absolutely nothing to the serious Zionist as they were merely sojourners in the "land of israel" and this is also why the rule of law in the former territory of Palestine has been superceded by the law of god - i.e. legal documents, deeds of ownership, physical possession of property all mean nothing in face of the Zionist state's hunger for other people's land, property and even bank accounts. Those photographs are truly horrendous. Sadly, only people with a sense of humanity will see them as such. Most others here will see them simply as good Israeli children helping the army. What a sick world.

In the words of Iran's current dictator - the way to peace in the Middle east is to rid the world of "the Zionist Entity". That would be us. The Jews. Yes, Fransico - Israel is a barrier to peace in the Middle east. Not because we are doing anything wrong. Simply because we are still breathing. In 1947 the Arab world leaders made a promise in Alah's name to rid the middle east of Jews. Us breathing is a testament to their failure. It's very similar to your problems in Spain. If all the spanish threw themselves into the sea - the Basque region would be in perfect peace.

Dr. Mounir Herzallah, a southern Lebanese Shiite, who wrote that Hizbullah terrorists came to his town, dug a munitions depot and then built a school and a residence directly over it. In fact, all the Qana thing was staged , dead bodies brought in and put in the building. http://www.arutzsheva.com/news.php3?id=109072

The difference between 1 and 60 is 59. The differnce between an accident an massacre.

Certainly you know the lesson of Jenin: first voices of palestinian journalists in CNN raising the number of dead to 400.500 (and even someone saying that Israeli are digging tombs for 900). It is you organization, Dr. Smith, who later wrote a separate report counting that in reality the number of civilians killed is... 20. But what was important is the inflation of rumors to the worldwide condemnation of Israel - even today some people say "IDF massacred Palestinians in Jenin". What matters is the difference in the SCALE OF REACTION of the world opinion to 28 people dead comparing to 56 dead (even sometimes mentioned 61). Even today, though the number of dead people is AT MOST 41, news.bbc presents it as AT LEAST 41 (Today's top article "Israel resumes Beirut air strikes"). Let me be clear, I don't state that the tragic death of 28..41 people is negligeable. It is very tragic. But unfortunately in this region the real events are often "tweaked" to serve political aims...

Makaryous, putting together the picture of israeli children writing on shells and the picture of died child is a blatant abuse of objectivity! Read carefully what these girls write- they write " to Nasrallah with love" and "from Israel and Danielle". And they are 100% RIGHT! Children in the north of Israel were constantly subject of rocket attacks in the time of PEACE! What else can you expect from them when they see rocket bursts in their courtyards and roads and they properly identify the man who during peace orders firing these rockets on them? Of course Lebanese children die, that's out of question, but israeli girls want IDF to defy them from aggressor, and not "just kill lebanese children"!

It can be explained in a very simple way: the terrorists of Hezballah employ the same dreadful technique as their comrades from Hamas do: they use civilians AS A LIVE SHIELD. As for Hague.. I'm sure you're having a good cup of coffee with croisson in quiet Madrid and therefore can understand nothing (nada, 0) about the Middle East. That's what most of "Hague-senders" do now.

I have tried not to, but I have to say. “Mr. Smith” it is a big shame to call yourself “Human Rights Watch”. You could call yourself “Market Place Old Lady Forum Watch”. I can’t believe that you believe the Hezbo propaganda. Yes it is terrible when people die and you see little kids dead. But this is not Israel’s responsibility but all of you from “Human Rights Watch” who are afraid and failed to stop terrorism and using kids to fight a war way before all this started. Look and you can find hundreds of photos of these extremists having kids carrying guns. This is child abuse big time and where is “human rights”? Those kids should carry books and toys but NO, their mom is mounting the explosives on her own kids….”One day my son we will all be proud when you blow yourself up, ok go now to bed and have a good night” CRAAZY……HALLLOOOO……HUMAN RIGHTS….WAKE UP…… Is the end of the world really near?

You make excellent points, Kate. Fortunately, Charles Martel slaughtered Abd al-Rahman in 732AD and stopped the Muslim barbarians from occupying more of Europe, but Europe was already occupied by Muslim invaders. Hmmm, no one ever discusses Muslim occupation or the Muslim pirates off the Barbary Coast (hence the term, "barbarians") , or Arab culpability in the African slave trade, or the glaring detriment of Muslim contributions to civilization in the past 500 years. Odd. Speaking of Basque, which was never a sovereign nation, Spain (with the Basques and Catalonians),Great Britain (with its Ulster, Scotch, and Welsh problems), France (with the Corsicans and Bretons), Belgium (with the Flemish and Walloons), , and Canada (with the Quebecois) , none have seen their independence. Oddly, palestinians, who are Arabs indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the Middle East as stated in the first article of the hateful PLO, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/plocov.htm are morally and politically entitled to "self-determination". I wonder why that is. What moral basis is there for such self-determination? Palestinians always identify themselves as Arabs. That being the case, why are over twenty sovereign Arab states, in a territory larger than that of the United States, not sufficient? And if palestinians are not Arabs, why do Arab leaders never demand self-determination for those palestinians not under Israeli control—such as in Jordan and Lebanon, or in the pre-1967 West Bank? I'm not worried. Weak leadership and a bit of amnesia in the west is a temporary thing, not a permanent condition. http://smoothstone.blogspot.com

Hmm, what's the difference, you ask, Rustum? These girls write on the shells greetings TO NASRALLAH (be cursed his name). Once more: they address the head of terrorist organisation which bombs their houses and kills their brothers, because nasralla (BCHN) had chosen this way. The other side wants to kill all jews - because we're jews, not because of any choice of ours'.

Mary - of course the children of Israel (or as the Arab Terrorts call them - the fiuture soldiers of Israel) do not count when they were murdered in busses, shopping centers, in streets, in cars and in their beds

you gotta love how the human rights watch group says israel is not being careful enough when droping bombs on hizbolla nd killing civilians but says nothing about the fact that hizbolla targets and kills our civilains on purpose, they aim at the civilians and meanwhile the human rights group watch says jack shit, fuck the human rights watch group

the bodies pulled from the wreckage looked awfully stiff and full of rigor...seemingly suggesting that they were already dead for quite sometime...they didnt appear freshly dead as the media supposed.....did anyone else pick this up?

The majority of the witnesses contributing to the recent HRW report condemning Israel were Arabs. Like it or not, there is a bias. The outrageous claims made therein are very consistent with Islamic fundamentalist thought and behavior, and not with Israeli, Jewish, or IDF workings. If HRW is actually dedicated to human rights, a neutral investigation will take place - not one so hopelessly vulnerable to rumor and demagoguery.

I believe that you and most Israelis wilfully misunderstand the Iranian president. He appears to have called for the destruction of the régime not of the citizens. That's rather a big difference, but in "hasbara" terms, it seems your government has managed to convince the world that Ahmedinejad is busy building gas chambers. The Iranian stance - unpleasant as it might seem to you - is that your racist government and the racist and anti-Moslem elements of the state should be destroyed. He does not seem to be calling for the physical destruction of anyone - unlike your government and chiefs of staff and most of the Israeli population, according to opinion polls, who appear to be quite happy with the war of destruction and the massacres of civilians being carried out by your army and air force. Rather than jerking yourselves into a simplistic Weltanschauung, so believed of Israelis, whereby the whole world is against you - why don't you just wake up and recognise that the fragile ethnic-based structure of the state is doomed, just like Rhodesia, South Africa. Majority rule will come. kullena muqawama

you wanna know who owns the human rights watch group website? according to networksolutions: Name: HRW.ORG Administrative Contact : Ayoub, Walid ayoubw@HRW.ORG 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 US Phone: (212) 216-1241 Fax: (212) 736-1300

By the time the truth will come out, we will come to see that the real casualties were just a few unfortunate kids that hezbullah sacrificed as "martyrs" to the cause by killing them themselves and then throwing their bodies on a crushed building!

Whether it's four unarmed UN observers or 28 civilians including 16 children, it's a tragedy. One should greet the reduction in estimated numbers with relief and condemn any efforts to exaggerate in order to score propaganda points. That kind of mud seems to stick, for some reason (viz. Jenin).

Well maybe there are a few people out there who are sincere, but by and large every one of them that I've seen is a bigot, racist, and anti-semite. How are you attacking Israel for defending itself by killing terrorists and accidentally also killing civilians, while ignoring the fact that almose every hizbullah rocket is aimed directly at civilian populations with the intent to harm or kill as many as possible !!! Its also been shown that Hizbullah hides behind civilians. Why arent these human rights violations ?? And dont forget how this all started when Hizbullah crossed an internationally recognized border murdering a few soldiers and kidnapping two more. Is that also not a human rights violation ??? I dont hear you calling for their release !!!! Just admit it, you are not a human rights activist, just an anti-semite.

Now, that was worthy of a Golden Globe for best staged performance by a terrorist entity since Mohammed Al-Dura. Remember hwo supposedly over 200 "innocent civilians" were killed in Jenin, when only 23 terrorists were killed? Remember how Human Rights Groups made Jenin out to be "Another Hiroshima?" Terrorists take Hitler's words to heart when it comes to telling lies: "Why tell little lies when a big lie is more effective." Way to go, Adolf Nasrallah!

Rustum - you write intelligently - but your words betray a complete ignorance. WE ARE the majority in our country - "WE" being Israelis. Unlike S. Africa and Rhodesia, Israelis are made up of Jews, Arabs, Druze and many others. Our issues are unbelievably different. Of course someone with no real knowledge of the region wouldn't know that. Your agreement with a dictator who has equated Jews with monkeys and pigs discounts your common sense and your humanity.

I'm curious about the fact that they write their greetings in English, not in Hebrew. This suggests the scenario like: foreign journalist asks them to write on the shell and expects to see curses and to pump some propaganda of it. Well, kind israeli girls hadn't left him a chance :) - but still, it isn't clear to me who allowed them to walk in the proximity of the cannon, it's not safe.

So, you think, if our state will be destroyed, Jews will be allowed to live here? Just refer to any honest history book to see the facts. The state of Israel did not exist in 1917, 1925, 1936 etc. - so why Jews were killed? Even if (you say) iranian president needs A-bomb for destruction of the regime (keeping all human beings alive), there is a fair amount if antisemits around us who will kill Jews physically. And Iran won't be responsible for that, "it just had happened". Your post looks like a demagogy, Rustum, sorry...

The difference is that one side built bomb shelters to protect its civilians and the other side built bunkers to protect its fighters. The difference is that one side places its military between its civilians and its enemy and the other side places its civilians between the enemy and its fighters. The difference is that one side attacks primarily the military of the other side and the other side attacks primarily the civilians of the other side. The results are predictable. One side wil have relatively few civilians killed and the other side will have relatively more civilians killed. That is by design and intention.

How many women and children did the RAF kill in Dresden? 50,000? The difference here is that the Qana bombing was acknowledged to be a mistake in intelligence. The IAF was not aiming for innocent civilians. On the other hand, the RAF **purposely** bombed Dresden and other German towns that were **not** military targets with the express purpose of killing civilians. And you have the unmitigated audacity to point a finger at the Jews?

How many German, Italian, Austrian, Romanian etc children were killed by British Lancaster bombers in WWII? By the logic of the wonderfully humanitarian British posters here, the best response to Nazi aggression would have been surrender. War is brutal, unfair and deadly for the innocent. Hence, it is unwise and immoral to start one unless its absolute necessary. That goes for Nazis, Hezbollah or Bush in Iraq. As for the anti-Israeli Brits, they have bizarrely distorted memories of their own wars of self-preservation.

Hey, makaryous , england, Got any links to the Irish bombing vicitims by England? What about England's turning boat loads of innocent Jews back to the nazi death camps? If not for British imperialsm and meddling, dividing up the mideast, India/Pakistan, we would not be in this mess. There is a commentator here from Switzerland, renouned for it's disgusting and shocking hatred of Jews, the Swiss continue shout.