I regret not commenting on this until now. On July 23 I received an email from someone in the jazz community rightly expressing dismay at the unfolding events in Lebanon. I have no reason to doubt this person’s good intentions. But one of the enclosed links directed the email recipients to this page. [Warning: the images are extremely graphic.] The first photo, by now famous, shows young Israeli girls writing messages on artillery shells bound for Lebanon. The rest of the photos show the mangled dead bodies of Lebanese civilians, including many children. Under the first such photo, with a red arrow implying direct causality, is the caption: “A Lebanese Child Receiving the message from the Israeli girls!”
The photo of the Israeli girls has generated a great deal of commentary. This post includes the perspective of some of the AP photographers who were on the scene. Nowhere in the propaganda item I linked to above is it revealed that the pictured Israeli girls had just emerged from a bomb shelter, or that their town, Kiryat Shimona, had been under continuous rocket attack from Hezbollah. I do not condone the childrens’ actions, but clearly they were being egged on by adults, then swarmed by photographers. To the best of my knowledge, the messages they wrote on the shells were addressed to Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, not to the Lebanese people, and certainly not to Lebanese children.
I’m dumbfounded by people’s willingness to drag children into this conflict. Readers of this blog will know that I condemn Israel’s killing of Lebanese civilians and I oppose its current military assault on Lebanon. But the Israeli girls in that famous photo live in a war zone. They have a child’s comprehension of what is going on. Those who would smear these children as war criminals and bloodthirsty demons ought to be ashamed of themselves. In a climate where Israeli civilians have been (and will no doubt continue to be) attacked at random by suicide bombers, and where even employees at a Jewish Federation building in Seattle are not safe from bullets, the photo spread I’ve linked to above constitutes incitement to hatred.
I will say this, however: The pictures of the carnage in Lebanon are necessary viewing for everyone who supports Israel’s campaign. Do not avert your eyes.
Comments are closed.