Is Israel conducting its own victim operation

Vital Perspective:

Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for The Washington Post and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" was interviewed on CNN by Howard Kurtz. According to the official CNN transcript, the following jaw-dropping conversation took place:

KURTZ: All right, Matthew Chance, stand by, thank you for that report. We will come back to you.

And joining us now here Washington Anne Compton who covers the White House for ABC News, and Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for "The Washington Post" and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

...

I am skeptical. If Israel is trying to get propaganda advantage out of the attacks on Israel, they are certainly doing a poor job. There are no victim photos exploiting the damage in Israel. On top of that is the other media story about the difficulty of finding and destroying all the launchers in Lebanon because of the surprising skill of the Hezzies. Israel has done little to claim victim status, beyond the fact that they were attacked and had their soldiers kidnapped. The Israelis have been rather stoic in the face of the rocket attacks. Itis a very different reaction to the hysteria coming out of Lebanon.

Comments

  1. Brad Williams1:45 PM

    He is not credible. Who in a position of knowledge would have told this guy these things? "Military analysts"? That could mean anyone, anywhere, just making up hypotheses.

    Such a strategy for the IDF would be suicidal beyond the extreme short term, since the outcry once it became known would be blistering, especially from Israelis.

    It is also hard to imagine IDF officers willingly allowing more of their own citizens killed than is necessary to prosecute the war. One has to morally equivocate to imagine that the "victim offensive" practiced by jihadist wingnuts could have any appeal to civilized Israelis.

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