In War's Aftermath

By Paula R. Stern
Sept/Oct, 2006

As a writer, words play an important role in my life. As an Israeli, the reality on the ground brings home what we have experienced recently in Israel. They say "pictures speak a thousand words" but as a writer, I know that the thousand words people hear when they see pictures are not always those I would want them to hear.

The most recent war in Lebanon offers a case and point. Building for building, the destruction is greater in Lebanon than in Israel. This is explained simply by military ability and intention. We hit what we aimed at; they didn't care.

We hit buildings that we knew were being used by Hizbollah gunmen. We told the citizens in advance; we warned them of incoming missiles. We did our best to target our attacks against those who targeted our civilians and those who kidnapped and continue to hold our citizens.

If a building was used by Hizbollah, our reasoning goes, it is a legitimate target. "If you sleep with a missile," said Israel's Ambassador to the UN, "sometimes you don't wake up."

Person for person, they have more dead. This too can be explained away. We have the technology, we have the might. And though we put our own soldiers at risk too often, we fought a military battle against an enemy that relishes death. And so, our civilian population, knowing it was being protected by our soldiers, moved south in the largest mass evacuation in our history. Nearly half a million people moved out of the line of fire, leaving their homes and property to fate.

In Lebanon, there were many stories of families prevented from evacuating. Our people hid in bomb shelters; their leaders hid in bunkers while the people were left exposed.

Picture for picture doesn't work when the pictures were manipulated by Reuter's photographers and Hizbollah controllers. Our goal was to hit their key targets while avoiding mass casualties on our side (and theirs). Their goal was simply to cause pain and chaos. To hit whatever they could hit, kill as many as possible - the more the better.

In the war's aftermath, the world continues to question not why Hizbollah caused this war, but the pictures of destruction they see.