Gen. Suleiman: Winograd Report Confirms Victory of Lebanese Resistance and Army
Friday, 01 February 2008
An Israeli report on the 2006 Lebanon war is a victory for both the Lebanese
Army and for Hizbullah, Lebanon's army chief said in comments published
Thursday. "We did not expect an official Israeli body to publicly condemn its
government and army," Lebanese Armed Forces commander General Michel Suleiman,
who is tipped to become president, told As-Safir newspaper.
"The Winograd report confirms that Israel ... is the one that took the decision
to launch a war on Lebanon without any justification," Suleiman said.
"Israel's public admission that its army failed in Lebanon strengthens our
confidence in ourselves as Lebanese ... and confirms the joint victory of the
army and the resistance," Suleiman added.
Hizbullah, which captured two Israeli soldiers in a raid to free Lebanese citizens detained in Israel, welcomed the report's findings.
"Israel failed completely in achieving its goals and the Israeli Army suffered a
military defeat at the hands of Hizbullah," spokesman Hussein Rahal told AFP on
Wednesday.
Hizbullah supporters in the South staged parades Wednesday to celebrate the
report's findings. Chanting slogans against Israel, demonstrators waved
Hizbullah flags and held up pictures of Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The Winograd Commission issued a report Wednesday that criticized the conduct of
the Israeli military and government during the war, but which excused key
decisions at the time by Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert.
The Winograd Commission, appointed by the Israeli government to probe the 34-day
war, said that the war was a missed opportunity and a grave failure for the
Jewish state.
"But Olmert had acted in what he sincerely believed to have been the country's
best interest," it added.
In other reactions Thursday, Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora said the Israeli
report on the summer war of 2006 set the stage for a possible future conflict
and failed to address "Israel's crimes against Lebanon."
"The report calls for preparation for the next war, which shows that Israel has
not learned the appropriate lesson from its defeat," a statement from Siniora's
media office said.
"The enemy's aims toward Lebanon have stayed the same - that is attacking
Lebanon in the future," it added.
Retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Eliahu Winograd said in a speech
presenting his report that Israel must seek peace with its neighbors.
"At the same time, seeking peace or managing the conflict must come from a
position of social, political and military strength, and through the ability and
willingness to fight for the state, its values and the security of its
population even in the absence of peace."
About 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 159 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were
killed in the war, which Israel launched after Hizbullah fighters captured two
Israeli soldiers and killed three in a cross-border raid.
Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday slammed the Winograd Report,
saying the investigation failed to condemn what it called “Israeli war crimes”
during the July War on Lebanon two summers ago. Amnesty said in a press release
that the report published Wednesday failed to investigate “a crucial aspect of
the war — the government policies and military strategies that failed to
discriminate between the Lebanese civilian population and Hizbullah combatants
and between civilian property and infrastructure and military targets.”
Malcolm Smart, the director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Program,
said that “this (report) was yet another missed opportunity to address the
policies and decisions behind the grave violations of international humanitarian
law — including war crimes — committed by Israeli forces.”
He added that “the indiscriminate killings of many Lebanese civilians not
involved in the hostilities and the deliberate and wanton destruction of
civilian properties and infrastructure on a massive scale were given no more
than token consideration by the commission.”
Siniora also said the report did not mention the war's cost on Lebanon. Israel
pounded the Hizbullah bastions of southern Beirut and South Lebanon with
aircraft, warships and artillery. It also hit other parts of the country.
Hizbullah fired about 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.
"The report does not contain any mention of the crimes Israel committed against
Lebanon ... or of the massacres against civilians ... the report also doesn't
mention huge destruction to infrastructure, most of which was hospitals,
schools, places of worship, bridges and residential buildings," Siniora added.
In his latest speech on the occasion of Ashura early in January, Nasrallah said
he doubted Israel had the political and military leadership and qualified army
to launch a new war on Lebanon.
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