Picking Your Way through a Story

Robert F. Worth has a report in today's NYTimes entitled, "Villagers See Violations of a Cease-Fire That Israel Says Doesn’t Exist".

I will just pick out the "odd" elements that mean much to me, for it's anti-Israel but if you read carefully, you really can learn something pro-Israeli.

A group of local men were unloading bags of donated food from a truck here Tuesday morning when the tok-tok-tok of heavy machine-gun fire rang out. Men shouted; children screamed and ran. Then, as it became clear the firing was just the Israeli tanks again up on the hillside above town, they went back to their routines. The shooting — and occasional mortar fire — goes on regularly around this village, a Hezbollah stronghold near the border.

Maybe the screaming was staged?

After all, here at Shiloh, especially during the summer season of weddings in the Arab viallges around us, there is shooting almost every night - as part of the wedding celebrations. If Worth was here and at the sound of the tok-tok-tok or whatever, I had some kids run around screaming, would that be okay?

Secretary General Kofi Annan cited numbers from the United Nations forces on Tuesday indicating that Israel had violated the cease-fire nearly 70 times, while Hezbollah had done so only 4 times.

Only 4 times?
The UN not only seems to be capable of properly institutionalizing a UN resolution effectively enough but I think they can't count.

But the Israelis do not believe there is a cease-fire to violate. “We are at a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, not a cease-fire,” Ms. Eisin said. She added that Israel had the explicit right to self-defense under United Nations Resolution 1701, which does not use the term cease-fire.

Well, what does the resolution say?

Perhaps no one has witnessed the confusion of south Lebanon more vividly than Muhammad al-Hussein, a 32-year-old farmer from the village of Qantara.

Last week he and his brother...found themselves passing a group of Israeli soldiers, who stopped them, Mr. Hussein recalled. The soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded the two brothers, and drove them to Israel.

For the next four days, shackled hand and foot, Mr. Hussein was interrogated about his family and village, he said. He was released Monday after United Nations and Lebanese Army officials lodged complaints with Israel...He said the Israelis had fed him, and had not struck or mistreated him. But he seemed profoundly nervous about encountering them again, and unsure how to avoid it...At the same time, Mr. Hussein also appeared to be nervous about Hezbollah. Asked whether the Israelis had asked him about the militia, he said no, and then refused to say anything about the subject.

So, unlike the two Israeli soldiers, Hussein and bro are back home and we are left with the sneaking suspicion that the Hizbees are doing what they do best - getting ready for terror.

In Aita al Shaab, public support for Hezbollah is almost total. One street where a number of Hezbollah fighters lived — commonly known even before the war as Hezbollah Street — was almost totally destroyed. Several families have returned to the ruins anyway, defiantly insisting on staying in their charred, stinking homes. Others are living alongside the ruins in green tents donated by aid groups.

“They destroyed our school in the village, but we will teach the children under the trees,” said Ms. Srour, the schoolteacher. “And we will teach them to hate Israel and love the resistance.”

Hmmm. So was Israel hitting civilian targets or the terrorist infrastructure?

But not far away, Muhammad Srour, a cleric and cousin of the schoolteacher, offered a slightly different view as he poked through the shattered ruins of his house, gathering a few remaining clothes and books into plastic bags.

“We’ve been beaten so badly that we still don’t want to admit we’ve been beaten,” he said.

Bless you, Muhammed Srour.

Now, was that "odd" or not?