Cut and Pasting Left-Wing Anti-Israel Rants

It will come as no surprise to the politically informed that the left-wing human rights group Amnesty International accuses Israel of war crimes in its latest report on the Israel-Hezbollah war. A Nexis search indicates the Washington Post didn't bother with the report, and neither did the Los Angeles Times.


Yet veteran Middle East reporter John Kifner finds it quite significant ("Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of War Crimes in Lebanon").


"Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of war crimes in its monthlong battle with Hezbollah, saying its bombing campaign amounted to indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and population."


Eight paragraphs of Kifner's 20-paragraph story are devoted to large chunks of the report (Israel's foreign ministry is given two graphs of response). The remainder is filled with other gripes about Israel's bombing from other "human rights agencies." Besides the Israeli official, no other criticism of the report is included, although Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has called it "bigoted, biased, and borderline anti-Semitic."