For well over a week, as the Qana incident has been debunked amidst the ruins of MSM credibility, suspicions have been raised that the much—photographed child victims were planted in the building, either after the fact, or in anticipation of an Israeli raid once the building was intentionally used to launch missiles.

The Riehl World View offers an overview of one branch of speculation — that many of the children appeared to be handicapped or disabled. Now a Lebanese Parliament member, possibly related to assassinated former PM Hariri, is going on the record.

'We have it from a credible source that Hizbullah, alarmed by Siniora's plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations. Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the negotiation initiative,' the site stated.

... 'There were 15 physically or mentally handicapped children among the children killed in Qana,' said Bahia Hariri, who represents south Lebanon.

Riehl quotes a French nurse in a French blog, who mirrors comments I received from health care providers.

'The probability that the families in the building had several multiply—handicapped children, that all of these children had been killed, and that all of the publicized photographs would show precisely these children, is the probability of winning the lottery. On the other hand, the probability that members of Hezbollah scored a two—for—one by relieving themselves of their burdens while playing the innocent victims seems much more credible to me.'

The problem, of course, is that injured children may look certain ways because of their injuries, and not have a pre—existing condition. Nonetheless, the possibility of Hezb'allah perpetrating such a monstrous action cannot be ruled out. And as Riehl points out, it is a two—fer. They are rid of the burden of caring for the children while harvesting a propaganda bonanza.

Thomas Lifson   8 14 06

Update: 9:41 AM PDT

In his August 14 post Mr. Lifson discussed the probable staging of the Qana "massacre" and noted that the probabilities were against having so many multiply handicapped children in one place.

I imagine he's right. In the spirit of inveterate nitpicking, one should note that the prevalence of first cousin marriage in fundamentalist Islamic cultures does appear to lead to a higher rate of birth defects. Some references are pasted below though none gives an overall rate:

Consanguineous marriage and reading disability.

On knowledge of increased incidence of congenital malformations among Israeli Arabs.

Kidney disease in Lebanon.

Central nervous system anomalies in the UAE.

Finally, some data from France where the decline in consanguineous marriage helps establish a baseline.

Linda Gorman

Independence Institute

Golden, Colorado