From the words of Olmert, it would appear that displacing the population of South Lebanon was an Israel war goal. He certainly counts this as a success. Then it is hard to argue that Israel did not deliberately target civilians to bring about this result.
Olmert:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745279.html
Quote:
Israel's offensive in Lebanon has "entirely destroyed" the infrastructure of the Hezbollah guerilla group, Olmert said Wednesday.
"I think Hezbollah has been disarmed by the military operation of Israel to a large degree," he said.
"The infrastructure of Hezbollah has been entirely destroyed. More than 700... command positions of Hezbollah were entirely wiped out by the Israeli army. All the population which is the power base of the Hezbollah in Lebanon was displaced," he said.
This and your previous post certainly suggest a deliberate blitzkrieg, but it is also pretty clear that Israel is my no means trying to maximize civilian casualties in the way they were maximized in the WW II allied bombings of Dresden and Tokyo.
ReplyDeleteI remain convinced that their strategy is unjust and unlikely to be productive of peace.