Thursday, January 24, 2008

Hezbollah and Israel continue to battle it out through propaganda

Nicholas Blanford in NOWLebanon, here
"...On Monday, Hezbollah raised the stakes a little higher when the pro- opposition newspaper Al-Akhbar said it had photographs of the remains of dead Israeli soldiers and published a picture of a dog tag belonging to Sergeant Ron Mashiach, who was killed during the war when Hezbollah fighters shot down a troop transport helicopter with an anti-tank missile as it was taking off from near Yater village....The Israeli Haaretz daily on Tuesday carried remarks by Mashiach’s distraught mother who had begun to question if the Israeli army had told her the truth about her son’s remains. “I understood he was buried whole. They said that except for the dog tag, everything is fine,” she was quoted as saying..."
...The propaganda ploy sparked an uproar in Israel, as a deeply embarrassed Israeli army was forced to admit that it had opened up the graves of two soldiers killed at Ansarieh to add the new body parts.
The Ansarieh episode was a prime example of Hezbollah’s ability to blend battlefield prowess with skilful propaganda, and underlined to Israel more than any other incident that its days occupying south Lebanon were numbered..."

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