According to UN officials, scattered around hundreds of civilian Lebanese targets struck by Israeli jets and artillery, in houses, schools, hospitals, gardens and fields lie deadly mini-bomblets. These were sown by US-made cluster bombs and shells. They are already reaping a fresh harvest of blood with at least eight Lebanese killed so far, including two children and many more have been injured.
Israel, however, has made it clear that there is no cause for concern. A military spokesman yesterday made the assurance that cluster bombs, like all the weapons used to bombard Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, were “legal under international law and their use conforms with international standards.” Therefore, the death and destruction already caused by the Israeli invasion and bombardment and still to be caused during the weeks and months that these wicked pieces of deadly ordnance lie in the Lebanese earth are all quite in order and utterly legitimate. But, of course, the Israelis are not trying to make any sort of case to the people whom they have just spent three weeks bombing. Because Lebanese civilians refused Israeli orders to immediately quit their homes and jobs and flee. it was entirely their fault that they themselves became targets and died in their hundreds. What the Olmert government is trying to do is convince its armorer in chief, President Bush and the White House, that Israeli generals stuck to an agreed code in the use of these weapons, which stated specifically that they would not be used against civilians.
Mired in criticism for its supine and indulgent behavior for almost a month while the Israelis turned a neighboring country into a free-fire zone, the realization may be dawning in Washington that the deadly legacy of unexploded cluster bomblets will continue to highlight America’s discreditable role in the attack and its willing provision of fresh armaments. The administration is therefore making a public business of demanding the Israeli military explain itself. Any shock expressed by Washington will, however, be completely bogus. Israel used the same deadly type of cluster bombs during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The Americans then censured those crimes and, as punishment, allegedly suspended arms shipments to Israel for six years. Few believe that really happened. Nor is there any likelihood that Washington is in the mood to impose any real sanctions on the Israelis this time. Indeed, a senior White House official has indicated privately that there will probably be no serious repercussions.
But there ought to be. Not only does Israel deserve the most robust condemnation by the international community for its barbarous use of the weapons against civilians, but the United States should also be denounced for supplying them in just the same way that it is denouncing Syria and Iran for sending rockets and other armaments to Hezbollah. As a first step, perhaps unarmed Israeli and US bomb disposal teams should be in Lebanon clearing up the deadly harvest, which has already killed three Lebanese soldiers who were attempting to do the dangerous job themselves.
