Al Jazeera on-the-ground spotters battle Israeli spy rings for control of Lebanon

Pulse

Collection of real-time intelligence for Hezbollah in 2006. (Photo: Yaron Kaminsky)

In honor of the fourth anniversary of the July 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, the Associated Press has produced an article that begins:

A group of 91 Israelis wounded by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 war is suing the Arab news network Al Jazeera for $1.2 billion in a New York court for allegedly aiding the Lebanese guerrillas, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Nitzana Darshan-Leitner said the suit, which was filed Monday, claims the Qatar-based news network intentionally violated Israel’s military censorship regulations and reported the precise locations of rocket strikes in Israel in live broadcasts during the monthlong 2006 war.
The reporting enabled Hezbollah to aim its rockets more accurately at Israeli targets, the suit alleges.”

Al Jazeera thus joins the list of international organizations that have been accused of aiding and abetting the Lebanese Resistance during this particular conflict. Other organizations include the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the alleged wartime partisanship of which does not explain why it has failed since 1978 to counteract regular Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace and periodic incursions by land and sea.
According to Darshan-Leitner:

Al Jazeera made itself a crucial component of the Hezbollah rocket offensive. The intent was to assist the terrorists in targeting and killing civilians… Without the assistance of Al Jazeera’s on-the-ground spotters, Hezbollah would have been unable to accurately aim its rockets into Israeli cities.”

The fact that Al Jazeera also reported what it was spotting on the ground in Lebanon appears to go over the head of Darshan-Leitner, who refrains from suggesting that the news outlet may be a double agent. As for news outlets not concerned with what transpired on Lebanese ground, these can be inferred from the following tally in the AP article, which neglects to mention the destruction of much of Lebanon by items launched by Israel:

Hezbollah launched around 4,000 rockets into Israel during the month-long war in 2006. The fighting killed 159 Israelis and 1,200 people in Lebanon.”

Also filtered out of the AP report are such details as that the majority of Israelis killed were soldiers while the majority of Lebanese casualties were civilians, a discrepancy that has not yet caused Israel to be sued in a New York court. As for technology that may be more effective in aiding and abetting military strikes than Al Jazeera reporters, these include video-equipped drones that enable such things as Israeli massacres of civilian refugees at U.N. compounds.

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