ISRAEL, we were always told, prides itself on the morality of its armed forces. "Purity of arms we were led to believe, was the watchword of the Israeli Defence Force, an absolute mission to avoid civilian casualties in war.
For most Lebanese, any such notions died in Israel's 1978 invasion (2,000 dead, almost all civilians); or in Israel's 1982 invasion (around 15,700 dead, almost all civilians); or in Israel's 1993 bombardment of southern Lebanon (123 civilians dead, 11 Hizbullah); or in the Israeli massacre of at least 120 civilians in the UN compound at Qana last week.
Israel has provided reasons for each bloodbath "terrorism" mistakes, ignorance.
But just 15 miles down the coast from Beirut, the Israelis can be under no illusions about their targets. On a 300 yard strip of highway north of Lebanon's second city, almost every Lebanese civilian motorist is being targeted by three Israeli 488 ton Hetz class gunboats.
The captains of these vessels can clearly see their targets, which include ambulances, private cars, taxis and vans.
The three ships are named Hetz - the title of the class - Keshet and Rornat. But when you drive on the road to or from Beirut, all that matters is whether or not you see a puff of smoke from the wicked little gunboats lying a mile offshore.
On Tuesday, one of the three ships took a shot at the Mercedes in which I was travelling; it exploded 100 feet behind us. On the same day, a 20mm shell exploded only 20 feet from a car carrying an Australian television crew and their Lebanese interpreter.
So far, at least eight civilians have been wounded by this deliberate Israeli shellfire. A ninth lies critically ill because the driver of an ambulance targeted by the Israelis lost control of his vehicle and collided with him.
Israel claims it is interdicting "terrorist" supply lines, although anyone who knows Lebanon knows that the Hizbullah have more secure trails by which to transport their Katyushas south.
By way of mitigation, the Israelis say the Lebanese have been told not to use the highway. Yet civilians in Sidon have no other road to Beirut.
Like the three children and two women whom the Israelis slaughtered in an ambulance 12 days ago, the Lebanese are now apparently responsible for their own deaths if they are targeted by Israelis who know all too well that they are innocent of any crime.
What morality governs a force which destroys the lives of three children and two young women because it dislikes the owner of the vehicle in which they are travelling?
After my latest brush with the gunboats, I sat and watched two of the ships firing at the traffic. What, I wondered, was going on in the minds of the captains and their crews?
Were they obsessed by their own propaganda, that Lebanon is "a nest of terrorism"? Did they really believe that each civilian they were firing at with their 20min Oerlikon gun deserved to be wounded or killed?
Of course, there are ways around everything. Lebanese civilians who value their lives can wait for the rain and storms which regularly hinder the ships' night vision.
But that is not the point. For each time these three ships fire their Oerlikon gun at civilians, they prove the lie about "purity of arms" and raise the old, old Middle Eastern question of double standards.
What if a Syrian gunboat shelled the traffic outside Ashkelon? Or a Lebanese gunboat fired at Israeli civilians in Haifa?
The UN Security Council would be called into session, the culprit nation would be arraigned before the court of world public opinion and the centre of Beirut or Damascus would be flattened within 24 hours. There would be a question - as in ex-Yugoslavia - of war crimes trials.
Oddly enough, I have not met a Lebanese who believes that the Israeli naval crews trying to kill them are going to end up in a war crimes trial. Not a soul thinks that the United States - that scourge of "terrorism" - will utter a word of condemnation or complaint.
The Lebanese, of course, are absolutely right. The crews of the Helz, the Keshet and the Romat are performing a wicked act.
Later, no doubt, they will sail back to Haifa and be thanked for a job well done.