Lebanon burning: where have all the moderates gone?

These days are not only ugly, they're frustrating. Nowadays everyone seems to have picked one side or another. BBC, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya are packed out with people either blindly towing Israels line or suddenly finding themselves in bed with Hizbullah. And with all this they forget what is most important; the humanitarian suffering in Lebanon brought on by a massive over-reaction and brutal and indiscriminate war on Lebanon. Don't get me wrong, Israel reserves the right to find Hizbollah combatants and Hizbollah likewise but that is not happening here. Both sides are deliberately targetting civilians and if that wasn't enough to satisfy the Israeli appetite for humiliating everyone the go and hit the UN peace-force base in Lebanon 21 times until they kill 4.

And what has come over mass media?! Why have Israeli soldiers suddenly become part of the number of Israelis killed? And why should Hizbollah dead find their way into the sanctity that the geneva conventions bestow upon non-combatants? There is a reason why both international law and humanity distinguishes between combatant and civilian and blurring the lines between the two is a very dangerous game that hitherto has only served Israeli propaganda (with more than 1/2 the total number of Israeli dead being combatants).

And how have so many people suddenly become such humanitarians overnight? Where are you guys when UNICEF only recently published a report claiming that approx 1,200 lives are lost daily due to famine, war and disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo? We know that has been going on for a long time now since Dec 2004 produced a similar figure of 1,000 per day by the International Rescue Committee. So who really cares?

And who goes and hijacks a good cause as usual? The Stop the War Coalition. Eager to impose her trotskyism on all those opposed to suffering once again this coalition of barmy Muslims and barmy Trotskyists are preparing a protest against the goings on in Lebanon under their banner.

That doesn't leave us moderates with very much room. We can of course continue contributing to the good likes of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch (who uncovered Israel's use of cluster bombs) and get writing to your MP!