Friday, December 29, 2006

Ambulance Hoax Follow-up

LGF sums up the follow-up reports on the Ambulance story.

What "ambulance story"?

This one:-

On December 19, 2006, the international advocacy organization Human Rights Watch issued a detailed, intensively researched report unequivocally affirming the factuality of an intentional Israeli attack on Red Cross ambulances at Qana on July 23. The report (titled "The 'Hoax' That Wasn't") by Human Rights Watch was created specifically to counter the claims made in my original essay titled "The Red Cross Ambulance Incident."

This commentary is a response to Human Rights Watch's new allegations.

INTRODUCTION

If you are not already familiar with the claims and counter-claims concerning the July 23, 2006 "Red Cross Ambulance Incident" at Qana, Lebanon, then this article will likely make little sense to you. If you have not yet done so, first invest the time to read my original report that started this discussion: The Red Cross Ambulance Incident, at zombietime.com. Next, read the entirety of Human Rights Watch's rebuttal of that essay: The "Hoax" That Wasn't: The July 23 Qana Ambulance Attack, by Human Rights Watch.

The story, in a very small nutshell, is this:

Various media outlets claimed that on July 23, 2006, Israel intentionally bombed two Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana in Lebanon, piercing one of the vehicles right in the center of the red cross on its roof. I wrote an essay disputing the media's version of events, eventually concluding -- after examining all known evidence of the incident -- that there most likely had never been an attack at all. This essay received a great deal of notoriety, which prompted several media outlets to attempt to re-confirm the incident; in updates to my essay, I rebutted those new reports as well. After several months, Human Rights Watch has now issued what it deems to be a definitive re-affirmation that the July 23 incident actually occurred. This essay is a response to that new report.

My conclusion -- at which I did not arrive lightly -- is that Human Rights Watch, despite an elaborate investigation, failed to make a convincing case that the ambulances were indeed intentionally attacked by Israel.

But don't just take my word for it: read the analysis below and draw your own conclusions.

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