Why Western media frames civilian areas as “Hezbollah strongholds”

[Tanja]

FNOTW: Why Western media frames civilian areas as “Hezbollah strongholds”
Author: Sharmin Narwani

Dahiyeh is not the only Lebanese area referred to as a "Hezbollah stronghold" by western media. Most Shia towns, cities and neighborhoods in this country are labelled with that moniker - facts be damned. Bekaa, Nabatiyeh, Bint Jbeil, Khiyyam and other predominantly Shia areas are frequently cited as such. Not coincidentally, all these civilian areas have been subjected to Israeli strikes over the years.

While hunting for Scuds in Lebanon two years ago - a search prompted by Israel's fabricated claim that Hezbollah was hoarding the difficult-to-conceal ballistic missiles - I came across some IDF “3D animated clips” that allegedly “illustrate how Hezbollah has turned over 100 villages in South Lebanon into military bases.”

Introducing an array of IDF computer-generated slides that purport to identify existing Hezbollah weapons stores by marking large Xs in Shia-heavy civilian centers, the Israeli military then alleges:

"Hezbollah stores their weapons near schools, hospitals, and residential buildings in the village of al-Khiam (Khiyyam). They follow similar tactics in villages across southern Lebanon, essentially using the residents as human shields, in gross violation of UN Resolution 1701. al-Khiam was used as a rocket launching site during the Second Lebanon war."
When I asked him about it, The Independent's veteran Beirut-based journalist Robert Fisk scoffed at the IDF slide show: "The Israelis are making excuses for the next war crimes. The Scuds don’t exist, they’re not here. I’ve seen the (IDF) pictures – garbage. There’s nothing in those houses."

Human Rights Watch’s extensive report on Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, entitled Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon, covers at length the Jewish state’s unproven allegations that Hezbollah stashes weapons among civilian populations – charges that Israel continues to repeat despite evidence to the contrary.

The group’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth concludes: “The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military’s disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians. Our research shows that Israel’s claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel’s indiscriminate warfare… In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around.”

Instead the Report clearly states:
“Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the deployment of Hezbollah forces in Lebanon routinely or widely violated the laws of war, as repeatedly alleged by Israel. We did not find, for example, that Hezbollah routinely located its rockets inside or near civilian homes. Rather, we found strong evidence that Hezbollah had stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys. Similarly, while we found that Hezbollah fighters launched rockets from villages on some occasions, and may have committed shielding, a war crime, when it purposefully and repeatedly fired rockets from the vicinity of UN observer posts with the possible intent of deterring Israeli counterfire, we did not find evidence that Hezbollah otherwise fired its rockets from populated areas. The available evidence indicates that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started and fired the majority of their rockets from pre-prepared positions in largely unpopulated valleys and fields outside villages.”
Fisk is correct. The Israelis are making excuses for the next war crimes. in 2006, the IDF used the "Hezbollah stronghold" and "human shielding" arguments for carpet bombing Dahiyeh, the very same residential neighborhood targeted by terrorists on Thursday.

And Western journalists act either as dupes or complicitly when they repeat these same Israeli-generated mantras - laying the groundwork for further military and terror strikes against Lebanese civilians.

It is not just Western media that regurgitates this irresponsible language. "Hezbollah stronghold" has been so mainstreamed that virtually all English-language media utilizes the expression, from Iranian-backed Press TV to Moscow's Russia Today. But online searches identify Western media - by far - as the main driver of this narrative.

Not all Western journalists are complicit though. On Twitter last Thursday, a rare moment of rationality came from a Voice of America source, of all places. VOA reporter Cecily Hilleary bothered to ask the all-important question: "Does term 'Hezbollah stronghold' aptly describe this Beirut neighborhood that was just hit by car bomb?" The first two responses were "no" and "it's a civilian area."

And as freelance British journalist Patrick Galey, a past Beirut resident, noted sarcastically after the Bir al Abed car bombing in July unleashed another Twitter-frenzy of "Hezbollah stronghold" tweets: "For 'Hezbollah stronghold' you can also say "highly-populated civilian area." Just a thought."

Watching an elderly woman sitting alone on the steps outside Bahman hospital on Thursday, her head in her hands, sobbing, as she awaited news of a relative injured in the car bomb earlier that day - it seemed ludicrous that the media still uses "Hezbollah stronghold" as a term to describe Israel's past and future civilian-targeted neighborhoods.

And yet, on Sunday, as four rockets were fired into the northern Bekaa - one landing in a school playground - the "Hezbollah" association was invoked again. There are many dangerous words and phrases used to frame people and events in the Middle East, but here, now, we can collectively make a start to change that.

 

[Serpentine]

Every place that Shias live is a Hezbollah stronghold according to them.They want to save some faces for the terrorists they are supporting in Syria, so people would say they have targeted a Hezbollah stronghold, not innocent civilians.