Following yesterday’s missile strike by Hezbollah on an Israeli military convoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms, which killed two Israeli soldiers, the US State Department issued a press statement “strongly condemn[ing]” the attack as a “blatant violation of the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks.”
Never mind that the resolution - passed at the end of Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon that killed approximately 1200 persons, mainly civilians - naturally requested that both sides cease hostilities and respect the Blue Line, the UN-christened border between Lebanon and Israel.
Of course, the US never gets its panties in a bunch over what amounts to one big ongoing violation of said border by Israel, which amuses itself by dispatching drones and supersonic jets into Lebanese airspace to terrorise people and eardrums. This is not to mention episodes of cross-border shelling and fatal shootings.
Regurgitating its usual mantra of “support [for] Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense”, the State Department pronouncement concludes with a condemnation of Hezbollah for “continu[ing] to incite violence and instability inside Lebanon by attacking Israel and by its presence and fighting inside Syria”.
Yeah, right. Because this attack by Hezbollah happened out of the blue, and wasn’t in retaliation for, you know, an Israeli airstrike that recently obliterated six of the organisation’s militants in Syria - a country that Israel is apparently allowed to penetrate but Hezbollah is not. An Iranian general also was killed. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.