An addendum to “How bad is the AI report?”

Yesterday we noted Jules Crittenden’s Boston Herald column on the Amnesty International report concerning Hezbollah’s conduct in the recent war. I quoted Jules’s paragraph on the prospective AI report on Israel’s conduct. Jules writes with an addendum on this point:

I neglected to point out in the Amnesty piece that AI had several weeks ago accused Israel of war crimes, and repeats in a preface to its condemnation of Hezbollah that both Israel and Hezbollah committed violations of international law. Within the text of the Hezbollah report, however, Amnesty fudges, as described in the paragraph from my column that you quoted. Amnesty notes that it has yet to properly investigate its own claims re Israel. Specifically, it has yet to address Israel’s claim that Hezbollah is to blame for civilian victims that were a result of Hezbollah’s illegal tactics that drew fire on civilians. Of course, that Israeli position was well known before Amnesty issued its first condemnation of Israel, so it is unclear why Amnesty needed Israel to point it out again.

I’d suggest that Amnesty owes Israel at least a conditional apology and retraction, until Amnesty can do its homework. For my part, I apologize to readers for failing to sufficient bitchslap Amnesty International for the bizarre and sloppy manner in which it is handling its Lebanon investigations and accusations.

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