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ISRANET DAILY
BRIEFING ARCHIVE Volume VI, No. 1,411 • Monday, July 31, 2006 CANADA’S
ONLY PRO-ISRAEL Please help us Fight for Israel! Please Help CIJR—the Unique Public-Oriented Think-Tank—Support Israel in its Current Crisis! YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS CIJR’s:
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ONLINE or Send Payment to address at the top of the
page A DOCTRINE OF CRUELTY AND
FOLLY Proportionality is the cry of the day since the crisis in Lebanon began. The abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah terrorists was the immediate occasion of the current conflict. Rockets launched by Hezbollah into Israel since 2000 may be said to provide its bristling context. Proportionality would, I suppose, have called for Israel to send in its commandos and abduct two of Hezbollah's team and, for perfection's sake, to fire rockets at whatever and wherever it liked in Lebanon, up to the number Hezbollah has sent its way in the six years since Israel departed Lebanon. For truly ideal proportionality, the rockets would have to be launched by a rogue army, operating out of Israel, in defiance of the Israeli government, and supported by states either indifferent to Israel's own interests or positively hostile to them. Proportionality may be easy to pronounce but, as can be seen, it's delicate and refined in practice. As far as I know, the Israeli military doesn't surround itself with Israeli civilians when it launches an operation, hiding rocket launchers in apartment buildings. Hezbollah, on the contrary, conducts its "adventures" only under these conditions. Israel has the decency to be tormented by civilian deaths. Hezbollah views civilian casualties as a tactical and public-relations utility. Hezbollah is a self-nominated militia that operates under the aegis of Iran and the "goodwill" of Syria. The Israeli military answers to its own government, and does not oblige itself with freelancing on its own or others' bidding. It should be clear that to attempt the proportionality that has become so popular a cry against Israel runs up against some eminently practical difficulties, not least the very idea of any rules—tactical, political or moral—being thought to pertain to a terrorist militia. Even-handed, balanced, neutral, proportional—how do any of these words fit the current conflict? Proportionality has one last grievous flaw. I can't recall the word being invoked by anyone at all when Hezbollah was firing its rockets and Israel wasn't responding. Proportionality, as the word is currently understood, appears to me, anyway, to be a kind of code. The state of Israel is allowed now and then to respond to those who are unlawfully attacking it or abducting its soldiers, but it must on no account do so in a manner that might actually end the attacks and permanently stop the abductions. It must fight terrorists according to rules that do not, by definition, apply to terrorists. To accept this understanding of proportionality is to accept that Israel is in a perpetual war of attrition, that it is always obliged to contain what force it has so that it is always balanced, even to ideal equivalence, with the force enjoyed by the rogues and terrorists who attack it. I cannot think of any other state in the world that is asked and, by the truly high-minded, expected to live in a perpetual dynamic of attack and response—with the initiative always understood to be with its enemies. Such is proportionality. It is a doctrine of cruelty and folly, but, more significant, it is a doctrine designed for the only state in the world that has to seriously worry about the fact of its own existence. Lately, it has more reason to do so than has ever been the norm for that battered country. One of the other ruder messages coming out of this current crisis is the number of voices starting to remind us that maybe Israel was a mistake to begin with. In Western opinion, this thought is but a whisper, but how common a whisper it is becoming.
Matthew Parris of The Times, no less, gave the thought its most weary expression: "My opinion—held not passionately but with little personal doubt—is that there is no point in arguing about whether the state of Israel should have been established where and when it was because it has become a fact. To try to remove it now would be at least as great an injustice as the one originally done to the Palestinians." What an interesting thought: Clear away the clutter and the ennui and what it says is that Israel was a mistake, both where and when, and if it weren't so much trouble, maybe we could fix it. Well, there are others on this globe who don't mind the trouble involved in fixing it, among them Hezbollah, al-Qaeda (which has jumped onside with Hezbollah) and the Iranian President, who speaks with such fervour of wiping Israel off the map. The latter is building a nuclear arsenal, and is likely not as dispassionate as the weary Mr. Parris. That kind of whisper is the tuning of an orchestra we do not want to hear. Nor do we wish to view, even in our dreams, the horrid proportionality its strains would most likely evoke. (Rex Murphy is a commentator with CBC-TV's The National and host of CBC Radio One's Cross-Country Checkup.) A
MUST-WIN SITUATION While we analyze the individual battles and the stages of this campaign, we must not forget the most important aspect of this war: Hezbollah and what this terrorist organization symbolizes must be destroyed at any price. This is the only option that Israel has. We cannot afford a situation of strategic parity between Israel and Hezbollah. If Hezbollah does not experience defeat in this war, this will spell the end of Israeli deterrence against its enemies. We did not choose this war, but we have reached a strategic crossroad. Following two weeks of fighting, Israel has still not achieved its main goals on the battlefield. The talks about a political solution are still in their early stages. At the same time, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has issued a declaration from his lair that he intends to move on to the stage that includes launching long-range rockets at Israeli towns south of Haifa. Hezbollah seeks to step up the war of attrition against civilian targets so that Israel will accept a vague cease-fire that will serve as a stepping stone for future attacks on Israel. Such a cease-fire should not be accepted. Iran is known to be demanding that Syria increase its support for Hezbollah in order to enable it to better resist the pressure from the Israel Defense Forces. Just as the United States would like Israel to defeat Hezbollah, Iran does not want the organization destroyed and is doing everything in its power to prevent this. This shows that the military struggle has still not reached its peak, nor have the diplomatic efforts. It is important for the Israeli public to know that there are critical issues to be decided. What matters is not the future of the Shiite town of Bint Jbail or the Hezbollah positions in Maroun al-Ras, but the future and safety of the State of Israel. This struggle will also determine Iran’s position in the Middle East and its role among the Arab states. Some of the Arab states recognize this fact and do not wish Hezbollah to emerge victorious in this campaign. Their stance does not stem from love of Israel, but from concerns for their own future. If Israel’s deterrence is shaken as a result of failure in battle, the hard-won peace with Jordan and Egypt will also be undermined. Israel’s deterrence is what lies behind the willingness of moderate Arabs to make peace with it. Hamas, which calls for Israel’s destruction, will be strengthened and it is doubtful whether any Palestinians will be willing to reach agreements with Israel. Therein lies the link between the fight with Hezbollah and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is also a link between Israel’s deterrence and what the Israeli public feels, as well as what it is fed. Unfortunately, over the past few days, a new national sport has emerged in the Israeli media: criticizing the IDF to the point of humiliation and unearthing failures, real or otherwise. The war has barely started, yet there are already calls for a commission of inquiry. If this had been the case during the War of Independence, we would not even have managed to take Jaffa… There is a whole generation in Israel that may not recall how many useless cease-fire agreements were signed in Lebanon. The most significant, which followed the 1978 Litani Operation, established UNIFIL. Israel does not need another cease-fire of this sort in southern Lebanon; it needs a new reality that, at the least, will distance Hezbollah’s military wing from this area. This is clear to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but Nasrallah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are trying to prevent it. IS
THIS A BIAS I SEE BEFORE ME? If Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, had her druthers, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt would have been tried as war criminals, since countless civilians were killed by Allied bombing throughout Europe during the Second World War. This is the eerie conclusion of Ms. Arbour's hasty and somewhat biased intervention in the war in Lebanon. A few days ago, she declared that "indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians," and condemned "the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians." And she warned that "this could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control." By these standards, the war against the Nazis should be considered unjustifiable... Most cities under German control were bombed and many of their inhabitants killed, and so were sites of "military significance" such as bridges in populated towns, airports, factories and so on, and this is how, in part, that war was won. And what about the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by NATO's humanitarian mission in Kosovo? Ms. Arbour was cautious not to openly take sides, but the subtext was very clear: Only Israel targets what its army believes (sometimes wrongly) are "military sites" (Hezbollah usually targets civilians); and the human casualties of Israeli bombings are much larger than those resulting from Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. This makes Israel the culprit. The implication of Ms. Arbour's statement is that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert might follow Slobodan Milosevic in the dock at the International Criminal Court… The former Supreme Court of Canada judge didn't bother to explain what a country should do when it is attacked by terrorist groups that stockpile their arms in "ordinary" houses, launch their rockets from densely populated areas and generally use innocent civilians as human shields. She didn't condemn Hezbollah's previous incursions across a UN-sanctioned international border. And she didn't condemn terrorism, which essentially targets civilians. Does sending explosive-strapped teenagers to kill other kids in Israeli pizzerias fit with Ms. Arbour's conception of human rights? Does she think a movement the stated aim of which is the annihilation of a country shows respect for human rights? Is Ms. Arbour comfortable with the UN Human Rights Council, one of the organizations she oversees as high commissioner? The council is a recent reincarnation of the discredited Human Rights Commission (Libya was actually elected its chairman in 2003). In 2001, the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban turned into an ignominious circus dominated by vicious anti-Semitic rhetoric. The problem is, the new Human Rights Council doesn't seem much different from the old Human Rights Commission. It still includes such well-known human-rights champions as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Algeria. At the council's inaugural session in June, Israel was the only country officially castigated for violating human rights. The council's first "extraordinary session," on July 6, focused exclusively on Israel's operations in Gaza. A resolution, adopted 29-11, didn't mention that these operations were in response to a Hamas attack on Israeli soil a year after Israel had withdrawn from Gaza. This is not exactly what Ms. Arbour had said when the council was created in February by the UN General Assembly. She declared then that "the council will be required to review on a periodic basis the human-rights record of all countries, beginning with its members." Obviously, a majority of council members had another agenda. It will be interesting to see, in the coming months, whether Ms. Arbour is able to withstand this close companionship with a group devoted to the demonization of Israel. Volume VI, No. 1,410 • Friday, July 28, 2006
THE FIRST
WAR, ALL OVER AGAIN This is a different kind of war, and an old kind of war. In the last war, when they blew up buses and restaurants and sidewalks and cafes, Israelis were enraged, apoplectic with anger. This time, it’s different. Rage has given way to sadness. Disbelief has given way to recognition. Because we’ve been here before. Because we’d once believed we wouldn’t be back here again. And because we know why this war is happening. A rocket hit Haifa in the first days of the war, killing no one, but injuring a number of people. It also tore the face off an apartment building, leaving the apartments inside eerily exposed, naked, for all to gaze into. That small block of Haifa, with its shattered shell of a building, rubble all along the street, citizens dazed as they wandered about looking at it all, appeared to be exactly what it was – a war zone. And yet, the people in the street stayed near their homes, going nowhere. The newscaster asked them why they didn’t go somewhere else, where it might be safer. One man answered with statistics. “Why leave now? We’ve already been hit. The chances of us being hit again are one in a million.” To which another man responded almost with outrage. “What do numbers have to do with it?” he asked. And then, he turned to the camera, almost screaming, pointed to the broken building, and said, “This is our home. Mi-po ani lo zaz. From here, I am not budging. And he repeated his refrain over and over again… Israelis understand what this is. This is a war over our homes. Over our homes in the north, for now, but eventually, as the rockets get better and larger, all of our homes. This is not about the territories. This is not about the “occupation.” This is not about creating a Palestinian State. This is about whether there will be a state called Israel. Sixty years after Arab nations greeted the UN resolution on November 29, 1947 with a declaration of war, nothing much has changed. They attacked this time for the same reason that they did sixty years ago. At first, it was the Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians. We put a stop to that in 1949, 1956, 1967 and 1973. Then it was the Palestinians, who bamboozled the world (and many of us Israelis) into believing that they just wanted a State, and that their terror was simply a way of forcing us to make one possible. We fought the terror in 1982 (Lebanon), 1987 (Intifada) and even after Camp David and Oslo, once again in 2000-2005 (the Terror War). And then, we actually tried to make the State happen. We got out of Lebanon to put an end to that conflict. And even more momentous, we got out of Gaza, hoping that they’d start to build something. And now, it’s Hezbollah. Or more accurately, Syria. Or to be more precise, Iran. What’s Iran’s beef with Israel? Territory it lost? It didn’t lose any. And does anyone really believe that Iran cares one whit about the Palestinians and their state? That’s not the reason. We know it, and so do they. Now, the bitter reality of which Israel’s right-wing had warned about all along is beginning to settle in. It is not lost on virtually any Israelis that the two primary fronts on which this war is being conducted are precisely the two fronts from which we withdrew to internationally recognized borders. We withdrew from Gaza, despite all the internal objections, hoping to move Palestinian statehood – and peace – one step closer. But all we got in return was the election of Hamas, and a barrage of more than 800 Qassams that they refused to end. And then they stole Gilad Shalit. Not from Gaza. Not from some contested no man’s land. From inside the internationally recognized borders of Israel. As if to make sure that we got the point – “There is no place that you’re safe. There is no place to which we won’t take this war. You can’t stay here.” Because as much as we have wanted to believe otherwise, they have no interest in building their homeland. They only care about destroying ours. Six years ago we pulled out of Lebanon. Same story. In defiance of the UN’s resolution 1559, Hezbollah armed itself to the teeth, and as we watched and did nothing, accumulated more than 10,000 rockets. And dug itself into the mountains. And established itself in Beirut, effectively using the entire Lebanese population as human shields. And, assuming that there was little that we could or would do, it attacked on June 12, killing eight soldiers, and stealing Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Not from Southern Lebanon. Not from Har Dov, a tiny hilltop that’s still contested. But from inside Israel. Inside a line that no one contests. Unless, of course, they contest the idea of the whole enterprise. Which they do. And which is precisely the point. And which is why this incredibly divided and divisive society has rallied so monolithically around a Prime Minister who until last week wasn’t terribly popular, and around a war that may or may not accomplish all its military objectives. It explains why, even as the air raid sirens go off across the country, and may eventually start their wail in Tel Aviv, too, as people dash across streets, panicked, trying to find the nearest bomb shelter, no one complains about the government. No one’s complaining about the amount of time it’s taking the air force to put a stop to this. It explains why all over this city, advertisements on bus stops have been replaced with a photo of an Israeli flag and the phrase Chazak Ve-ematz – “be strong and resolute” (Moses’ words to Joshua in Deut. 31:7). Even the people who’ve lost family members, who are interviewed while still overwrought with grief, have no complaints about the government or the army. “Finish this job,” they effectively say. “We’ll stick it out.” But behind the defiance lies sadness, a tired and experienced renewed loss of optimism, a wondering if it will ever, ever end. Because we know what they want. It’s not the Golan Heights. It’s not the West Bank. And it’s not a State. We know what they want, and we know why they want it. On TV the other night, one of the news shows started off with a brief comedic episode. It showed two guys, looking and acting Israeli to the hilt. One of them was speaking in a heavy caricatured Sephardic North African [accent]…telling his friend, over and over and over, “mi-po ani lo zaz. This is the only place where Jews can be safe, he insisted. This is the place we must stay. From here, I’m not moving.” And then the camera panned back, until gradually, you realized that the background you were staring at was the London Bridge, and the Tower of London. It would have been funny, if it weren’t so sad. It’s sad, because deep down, people are starting to wonder. Would going there be the only way to get beyond their hate? We got out of Lebanon. We left Gaza. Olmert was elected after he openly declared his intention to give back the majority of the West Bank. But without intending to, we called their bluff. And now we know: the issue isn’t their statehood. It’s ours. The sadness comes from the clarity. We can sign peace treaties, and withdraw, and arm ourselves. But nothing’s enough. You sign a treaty with Egypt, but then Syria takes over Lebanon and uses Hezbollah as its proxy. You get peace with Jordan, but Iran joins the fray. You learn to defend your border, so they attack you from well within their countries. It feels relentless, because it is. It feels like it never ends, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like the seventh war. It feels like a continuation of the first. Could it be that we’re right back where we started? … Is this like the first war, because we could win it and still not have security? What if, as even the army says is likely, Hezbollah is left wounded but still intact at the end? What, we just wait until they decide to lob more missiles at Haifa, or Safed, or even Tel Aviv? Bomb shelters will once again be part of the reality of [life for] Israeli kids? Have we returned to the late 40’s and 1950’s, when border towns had to live with the ongoing dread that Fedayeen would sneak across the border and kill people? Except that now, in an era of missiles, most of the country is a border town. This is like the first war because Israeli citizens, in the middle of the country, are getting killed by a foreign “army.” In 1956, 1967 and even in 1973, we mostly took the war to the border. And then to their territory. Israel’s civilian population centers, even in those horrible conflagrations, were left more or less intact. But not in 1948, and not this time. Haifa is the front. Safed is the front. Nazarath is the front. And they’re all burying people. Adults, and children. Jews, and Israeli Arabs. And Tel Aviv, if you believe Nasrallah, may well be next. And it’s like the old wars because all our hopes to the contrary notwithstanding, the casualties are mounting. Just days after the Israeli pundits were discussing whether or not a limited ground incursion might be necessary…there are troops on the ground in Lebanon. Thousands of soldiers, the papers say this morning. And in the few days since they’ve gone in, kids have been coming back in body bags. These are elite units, and though we’re told that they’re having some successes in finding and destroying the bunkers built into the mountain, they’re encountering heavy resistance. And not all of them are making it home. We’ve been here before, too. We’d thought we were done with that. For the first few days of this new war, Israelis were relieved to see the footage of a hundred Israeli planes over Lebanon at any one point. We’d show them that they’d miscalculated. We’d put a stop to this. We’d get our stolen boys back. A decisive victory, like in days of old... But well into the second week of the war, we don’t have our boys back. And soldiers are dying… And the victory hasn’t been decisive. And Israeli cities are still being shelled, and traumatized Israeli kids by the thousands are still sleeping in bomb shelters. Just like in the first war. And it’s like the first war because the news is broadcasting photos of lines of Arab refugees fleeing the fighting in Beirut, heading north, or to Syria. Israeli TV is showing footage of a former city that looks much more like Dresden than Beirut. There are probably some Israelis who couldn’t care less, but the ones that I talk to, work with and share a neighbourhood with, do care. They understand that we probably have no choice, for Hezbollah has decided to use Beirut as its human shield, and for years and years, Lebanon did nothing to stop them. Or even to try. And we have no choice but to survive. But the Israelis I talk to all day long are still saddened by the miles-long lines of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Lebanese refugees, fleeing their homes and rubble filled neighbourhoods with white flags hovering outside their cars even as Israeli war planes roar overhead. Simply on a human level, we know that the suffering is incalculable. That, too, looks like that old black and white footage from the War of Independence. And as a problem for Israel, we know, Arab refugees don’t disappear. They attack, we respond, they flee. And then the problem becomes ours... And so it goes. Another all out war, when it could have been different. If they’d wanted something else. But they don’t. Not the Iranians, not the civilians in Syria interviewed on CNN who spoke with admiration of Nasrallah, not the Palestinians on the West Bank who’ve posted his picture everywhere, and not even the Israeli Arabs in Nazareth who, from the depths of their mourning, blame Israel and not Nasrallah for the loss of their children. So it’s the seventh war (Or the eighth, if you count the War of Attrition. Or the ninth, if you count the first Intifada). And the first war. It’s all the wars. They’re all the same, in the end, because we can’t afford to lose. We can’t afford to lose, so we won’t. More decisively or less, with more destruction of Lebanon or less, sooner or later, we’ll win it. We have to. The whole enterprise is at stake. …When the 1973 Yom Kippur War was at its height, Yehoram Gaon went to the front and sang the now famous lyrics, Ani mavti’ach lach – “I promise you, my little girl, that this will be the last war.” They never play that song anymore. Because no one believes it. There will be no last war. It’s the eighth war, or the ninth. But it isn’t the last war. It’s the first war, all over again. We’ve got this war for the same reason that we had all the others. We have this war for the same reason that people in Haifa are still saying mi-po ani lo zaz. We got this war for the same reason that we got the first, and the second. We know why they attacked then. And we know why they’re still attacking. And we’re determined to hold on for the same reason that they’re so determined never to stop. There’s one reason, and one reason only: The Jewish People has no where else to go. SPEECH
AT SOLIDARITY RALLY FOR ISRAEL …[T]oday I want a message to go forth from us to Israel to say: Israel, you make us proud. In a mere 58 years, in a country half the size of Lake Michigan, you have done things that are unbelievable. You have gathered together Jews from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than eighty different languages and out of them made a great nation. You have taken a land with no natural resources and turned it into one of the great economies of the modern world. You have created a democracy in a part of the world where no one thought it possible. You have taken a desolate land and made it blossom and bear fruit. You have developed medical technologies to save life. Wherever in the world there has been a natural disaster, you have been among the first to offer humanitarian aid. Through six decades under almost continuous threat you have given the world poets and philosophers and musicians and novelists whose heart is Jewish and whose love is for all humanity. You have taken the language of the Bible and made it speak again you have taken a people from the valley of the shadow of death and made it live again. You have taken hope itself – hatikvah shnot alpayim – and made it breath again. Israel: you are our people and our pride and we stand with you today. Why then does a people who have consistently said ‘Yes’ to life and ‘No’ to death, who have consistently said ‘Yes’ to peace and ‘No’ to terror, find itself today fighting in Lebanon and Gaza? The answer is so simple, yet so unbelievable, that we must hear it clearly and unequivocally: Israel is fighting today in Lebanon because 6 years ago it withdrew from Lebanon. Israel is fighting today in Gaza because 1 year ago it withdrew from Gaza. And Israel discovered the terrible truth spoken by the late Mother Theresa. That no good deed goes unpunished. Every gesture of goodwill undertaken by Israel has been seized on by its enemies as a sign of weakness. Every Israeli effort towards peace has led without exception to an increase in violence against Israel. The Oslo Peace Process led directly to the first Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel. Taba: the most generous offer Israel ever made to the Palestinians, led directly to the most concerted set of terrorist attacks against any nation in modern history. The Gaza Withdrawal, the most painful act Israel has ever had to undertake, led within less than a year to 1000 Kassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets including schoolchildren. And finally the Lebanon withdrawal, undertaken by Israel six years ago in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. That resolution was immediately broken by Hizbullah, about which the United Nations special envoy to Lebanon warned at the time, in November 2000: “Such breaches of international peace and security in the south threaten to ignite a new spiral of violence with tragic consequences for the civilian population.” That failure led in 2004 to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 which called categorically for the disarming of militias in Lebanon. Again rejected. This time Kofi Annan himself protested to the Syrians. The effect? The arming of Hizbullah with weapons that threaten the very heart of Israel. Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Israel does not want to be in Lebanon. It does not want to do any of the things it is now doing. It accepted in good faith the commitment of the United Nations that it would not have to. It is acting today only because the international community has failed to ensure that its neighbours met their obligations when Israel met hers. Israel, the Israel we know and love, is a people that pursues peace, yearns for peace, sings about peace, needs peace. For 58 years it has done everything a nation could do in pursuit of peace, and it has been rewarded instead with violence and terror. It has done what the world has asked it to do, and the result has been that it has been left vulnerable and alone… Tragically, Jews have learned over the centuries that when their enemies [speak] of killing them, driving them into the sea, [and] wiping them off the face of the earth, they mean what they say…. Friends, let me tell you what is wrong with terror. It is not just that it murders the innocent—the young, the old, the defenceless, the uninvolved—it is that it murders innocence itself. It turns virtue into weakness, decency into vulnerability. And if we, if Israel, if Europe, if America, do not take a stand against terror, if we ignore it as the world ignored it for so long, then it will leave a stain on the human future that no tears, no regrets, will ever remove. The battle Israel is fighting today is not for itself alone, it is for the sake of all those who say ‘No’ to terror, ‘No’ to the desecration of life, ‘No’ to killing in the name of God. Whether they live in Bali or Beslan, or Madrid or Mumbai. Shabbat Shalom to all our readers!
Volume VI, No. 1,409 • Thursday, July 27, 2006 SOLDIER
DESCRIBED LIFE IN WAR ZONE "What I can tell you is this; we have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both artillery and aerial bombing," [Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener] wrote in an e-mail just nine days before he was killed with three other UN peacekeepers by an Israeli bomb… He attributed the attacks to the grim reality of war, refusing to blame the Israelis for hitting the compound and emphasizing "the nature of my job here is to be impartial and to report violations from both sides without bias." "This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity," he wrote. The statement suggested that Hezbollah fighters were operating close to the UN base… …For the past nine months, [Maj. Hess-von Kruedener] had been stationed on a patrol base about 10 kilometres from the Israeli border. His eight-man team was responsible for reporting any violations of a United Nations ceasefire, but as unarmed observers they had no ability to enforce it. [He] wrote about what he had seen before the outbreak of all-out war—a failed attempt by Hezbollah to kidnap Israeli soldiers last November, the Israeli shooting of a shepherd boy a few months later. Border skirmishes grew increasingly intense as Hezbollah continued to lob rockets into northern Israel. He described the current fighting as "by far the most spectacular and intensive" he had ever seen. It was so intense it forced his UN team to retreat to their camp… Yesterday, Maj. Hess-von Kruedener's body was airlifted out of southern Lebanon. The UN border post where he had served was destroyed. ANNAN’S
LIBEL It is difficult at times, and perhaps today impossible, to fathom how UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan assesses events involving Israel. On Tuesday, four members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were killed when their position was hit by IDF fire. Annan reacted by declaring that the incident was "an apparent deliberate targeting by the Israeli Defense Forces of a UN observer post." Yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conveyed to Annan Israel's "deep regret" over the incident, as well his "reservations" over Annan's "inconceivable" decision to accuse Israel of deliberately targeting UN forces. Reservations? Perhaps Olmert had to be polite, but outrage would be a more appropriate sentiment. Just yesterday, Israel paid another terrible price in its soldiers' lives in the fight against Hizbullah. They died defending their country, but they also died, in effect, implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands the disarming of Hizbullah. Israel has already apologized for, and pledged to investigate, the deaths of the UNIFIL soldiers. Where is Kofi Annan's apology for insulting Israel, and his investigation of how UNIFIL came to be so inseparable from Hizbullah that it has been almost impossible to target the later without inadvertently hitting the former? Where is his gratitude for Israel's implementation, with the blood of its children, of a UN resolution? And why, pray tell, would Israel target UNIFIL? Is Annan suggesting some sort of Israeli anti-UN sadism, or that Israel would have some reason to target UNIFIL in its war with Hizbullah? …The IDF, perhaps more than any other military force, does its utmost to avoid hitting noncombatants… In his own report on UNIFIL, delivered just last week to the UN Security Council, Annan noted that "on the morning of 15 July, IDF announced via loudspeakers to the residents of [the Lebanese villages of] Ayta ash Shab and Marwallin that they should vacate their villages," clearly to minimize noncombatant casualties. Far from targeting civilians, Annan is aware that the IDF routinely sacrifices the element of surprise to spare them. The lamentable killing of the four UNIFIL personnel clearly requires investigation, something the IDF carries out in any case of a mistake made in the heat of battle. But an investigation of even greater importance to long-term regional stability would be of UNIFIL's failure to fulfill its mandate of restoring peace and security in southern Lebanon… With diplomacy focused on creating a new multinational force in the aftermath of the fighting in southern Lebanon, it is essential to understand what went wrong with the existing one. Such an investigation must determine more than just how UNIFIL troops were located in such close proximity to Hizbullah terrorists... More fundamentally, it would delve into how, in complete contravention of its objectives, UNIFIL stood by without a murmur as a terrorist organization amassed thousands upon thousands of rockets whose unprovoked use has killed and wounded dozens of Israelis and precipitated the current war… It is Israel that is owed an apology for Annan’s accusation, which our UN ambassador called shocking, distressing, premature, hasty and erroneous. We are owed more than that: an independent, blue-ribbon investigation into how UNIFIL forces became human shields for the terrorist army they should have been fighting to dismantle. WHO’S
DISSIN’ WHOM As Israel fights to defend itself against the Iranian-and-Syrian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, are we really seeing a reckless, damaging and—yes—disproportionate response? You bet. But not from Israel. It's coming from the U.N. Hezbollah deliberately provoked this war on July 12 by kidnapping Israeli soldiers inside Israel's borders, and has been launching rockets into Israel from a massive arsenal that under U.N. writ Hezbollah is not even supposed to possess. That was not the deal under which Israel, in keeping with U.N. wishes, withdrew entirely from southern Lebanon in 2000. The U.N. promise was that Hezbollah would be defanged and that U.N. peacekeepers would help the Lebanese government reestablish control over Hezbollah-infested terrain inside Lebanon. Over the past six years, Israel honored its commitment to peace. The U.N.—disproportionately—required in practice no such compliance on the Lebanese side of the border. The "peacekeepers" of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, called UNIFIL, sat passively looking on, costing about $100 million a year and doing nothing to stop Hezbollah from trucking in weapons, digging tunnels, and running the armed protection rackets with which it has kept a grip on swathes of Lebanon… With its false promises, and disproportionate deals for "peace," the U.N. left Israel exposed to the attack that has now come, and a war that Israel did not seek. Like America when attacked by al Qaeda, Israel has been fighting back. In response, U.N. officials have come close to trampling each other in their stampede to the media microphones—not to admit the U.N.'s own failure to stop Hezbollah…but to denounce Israel. These latest exercises in disproportion begin, of course, with U.N. officials ritually condemning all parties. With that sleight of hand, they conjure the baseline U.N. fallacy known as moral equivalence. In that U.N. scheme of the universe, a democratic society that is attacked while honoring U.N. agreements is treated as no different from its death-cult rule-violating terrorist attackers… Thus did we get last week's Pollyanna platitudes from U.N. Deputy-Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, who on the subject of this Hezbollah-propelled war opined that "military solutions"—an apparent allusion to Israel—are not the answer. "The basic point," said Malloch Brown, is that "saving or losing a life is a very simple business". Perhaps that is how the world looks from the tree-shaded lawns of the George Soros estate, where Malloch Brown rents a $10,000 per month home. But the saving of lives is anything but simple in the face of a Lebanese landscape infested with Hezbollah terrorists using Lebanese civilians…as shields to launch death-dealing attacks on Israel. It is even less simple when you consider that Hezbollah has for years been on the receiving end of a Syrian-Iranian Ho Chi Minh trail of money and munitions which the U.N…. has done nothing in practice to block. And it all gets most terrifyingly un-simple when you take into account that Hezbollah…is the Lebanon-based arm of a nuclear-bomb-seeking Iran, which the U.N. has also failed to stop, and whose president has vowed to annihilate Israel. At the very least, one has to wonder if Malloch Brown would take the same Bambi-eyed view were Hezbollah rocketing his local tennis courts. Following the words of Malloch Brown, we have been treated over the past week to Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemning Israel for "excessive use of force," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour hinting darkly about "war crimes," and the accusations this past weekend of U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jan Egeland about "violation of humanitarian law." The issue here is not, in fact, what yardsticks these people are using…but that they are abusing their U.N. positions by making these selective, ad hoc accusations against Israel in the first place. These folks are not presidents, or prime ministers. They are U.N. civil servants… In the case of Arbour, and her threats aimed at Israelis, Ambassador John Bolton had a very good point when he offered [her] a reminder last weekend…as "one lawyer to another," that "In America, prosecutors are not supposed to threaten people in public based on press accounts."… Among other things, it was apparently lost on [Jan] Egeland, when he toured the bomb damage in south Beirut last weekend, that his convoy was waved past a road block by "a Hezbollah guard dressed in black and armed with an assault rifle," according to a Reuters report. That scene right there was a violation of everything in the U.N. book, and not by Israel—but apparently it didn't fit his script. There are of course some subjects on which the same senior U.N. civil servants now so vocal have been most disproportionately circumspect. I can't recall any of them protesting in public that totalitarian, terrorist-sponsoring Syria (surely something in there is a violation of international law?) was allowed not so long ago to chair the U.N. Security Council, while democratic Israel has been chronically shunned… Right now it is the job of the world's more responsible political leaders not simply to deplore the horrors of war, or construct another false U.N. peace leading to even worse nightmare ahead, but to seek real answers to the miseries and menaces of the Middle East. That is a task perilous, contentious, and rough enough, without a parade of unelected and largely unaccountable U.N. civil servants using public platforms to insinuate into the process their private prejudices. (Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.) THE
UN VS. ISRAEL The war between Israel and Hezbollah has prompted many international leaders and commentators to support a deployment of an expanded UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. This idea should be rejected for a variety of reasons. The most important is this: The UN is not a neutral actor in the Middle East. Time and again, it has been co-opted by Israel's enemies. Examples abound. But perhaps the best lies with the United Nations agency touted as the new face of the world organization: the UN Human Rights Council. The new body was established this year as a replacement for the discredited Commission on Human Rights… After only three weeks in operation, however, the council reverted to the hypocrisy of its predecessor. The first disappointment came during the Council's inaugural two-week session, which opened on June 19. Western countries, seeking to focus the body on establishing basic mechanisms, naively proposed to omit mention of specific geopolitical situations. Predictably, the UN's Arab and Muslim blocs objected. At the Council, as everywhere at the UN, their goal was to censure a single country: Israel. In meetings leading up to the Council's inauguration, the 56-country Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) insisted on a special agenda item to knock Israel, just like at the old commission. The Europeans surrendered, as always, with a last-minute "compromise." Yes, the OIC would get its Israel-bashing day. However, the listing on the official agenda would be obscured so as to hide the blatant bias. The result: the session's only substantive debate, while featuring a few references to the crimes in Darfur and dissidents elsewhere, was dominated by demonization of the Jewish state. Thus emboldened, the OIC and its allies promptly bagged four additional victories, each another dagger in the council's credibility: *The OIC subverted the resolution extending the mandates of the independent human rights experts. Adding a footnote, the text singled out the Special Rapporteur on Palestine—whose instructions allow for examination of only Israeli violations—as the sole investigation lacking an express year of expiry. The entire Western group—including Canada—voted for the tainted text. *The same resolution retained Switzerland's Jean Ziegler as the "Special Rapporteur on the right to food." Ziegler is the 1989 co-founder of the "Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize"--a distinction he won himself, in 2002, together with convicted French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy. *In its only resolution naming a specific country, the council officially denounced Israel. The decision, drafted by the OIC, orders reports on Israel that prejudge it as guilty, and forces "Israeli violations" to be written on the agenda at all future sessions. *The council adopted another OIC-written resolution, against "defamation of religions"--i.e., cartoons of Mohammed. Canada and EU countries voted No, but never challenged the hypocrisy of countries such as Saudi Arabia—whose textbooks preach hatred against non-Muslim "infidels"—pronouncing themselves on the issue of "religious intolerance." So concluded the inaugural session of the world's top human rights body. Only it didn't end there. Just as the gathering adjourned, the Arab League demanded a "Special Session" to censure Israel again. Days later, the council duly convened to produce yet another resolution slamming the Jewish state, and creating "an urgent fact-finding mission"—one headed by the Special Rapporteur on Palestine, John Dugard, who zealously embraces his one-sided mandate. Indeed it was Dugard who opened the session, offering "every sympathy for Corporal Gilad Shalit; and indeed for all Israel's young soldiers compelled to serve in the army of an occupying power."… This is the same man who has lauded Palestinian terrorists for their "new determination, daring, and success." Real change at the United Nations will require moral clarity and courage—the kind that Stephen Harper exhibits when he identifies Hezbollah and Hamas as the true source of Middle East instability and warfare. So long as the UN eschews such clarity, and remains the diplomatic plaything of terror apologists, the idea of the United Nations safeguarding Israel's security—in Lebanon or anywhere else—will remain a pipe dream. (Hillel Neuer is executive director of UN Watch, and editor of its Web site, www.unwatch.org.) Volume VI, No. 1,408 • Wednesday, July 26, 2006 WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP WEEKLY QUOTES “I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces. This coordinated artillery and aerial attack…occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire.”—UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, speaking from Rome, accusing Israeli forces of intentionally striking a UN outpost, killing four UN observers yesterday in South Lebanon. It is believed that the four, who only recently arrived in Lebanon, were aiding the UN’s Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). (Globe & Mail, July 26) “I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the Secretary-General.”—Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, calling Kofi Annan’s words “premature and erroneous.” Israeli Spokesman Mark Regev has said the military will investigate, “We do not target UN personnel and, since the beginning of this conflict, we have made a consistent effort to ensure the safety of all members. This tragic event will be thoroughly investigated.” (Globe & Mail,CanWest News, July 26) “Those who urge Egypt to go to war to defend Lebanon or Hezbollah are not aware that the time of exterior adventures is over.”—Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, following talks with Saudi King Abdullah, rejecting the Iranian leaders demands that Egypt and the rest of Arab world respond to Israel's actions in Lebanon. “The Egyptian army is for defending Egypt only and this is not going to change,” Mubarak added. Saudi Arabia was the first Arab state to openly criticize Hezbollah, arguing that the people should distinguish between legitimate resistance and dangerous adventurism by some parties without cooperation from their governments and the Arab states. The Saudi stand reflected the position of all the Gulf countries, which are of the opinion that Hizbullah and Hamas are acting on orders from Teheran and Damascus. (Ynet News, July 26; Jerusalem Post, July 17) “In my opinion, Lebanon is the scene of an historic test, which will determine the future of humanity... It is inconceivable for anyone who calls himself a Muslim and who heads an Islamic state to maintain relations under the table with the regime that occupied Jerusalem.”—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a July 23rd interview on the Iranian News Channel, dismissing statements by Egyptian, Saudi and Jordanian leaders that Arabs and Muslims cannot allow Hezbollah to drag the region to war. Ahmadinejad’s statement follows earlier, more threatening remarks directed toward these states. “[T]he people who close their ears to the cries of the Palestinians and blindly support [the Zionist] regime will be responsible for the consequences.” (MEMRI, No. 1212, July 26; Globe & Mail, July 21) “If we’re going to have a permanent settlement in the Middle East, we have to stop this kind of violence, we have to stop these kinds of attacks.”—Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, singling out Hezbollah and Hamas for accumulating arsenals and launching terrorist attacks against Israel. On the subject of a multinational peacekeeping force now being discussed by the international community in Rome, Harper said this proposed force should not just keep the peace but root out terror. (National Post, July 26) “It’s double rejection… Not only did the Arabs reject Israel’s right to exist at the dawn of Israel’s statehood, they were prepared to forgo Palestinian independence if it meant accepting a Jewish state.”—International human rights lawyer and former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, speaking at the annual general meeting of the Israeli branch of the Lions of Judah. In a subsequent comment on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cotler said, “We have a leadership that seeks a Middle East holocaust at the same time that it denies the Nazi Holocaust.” (Jerusalem Post, July 2) “On a trip to the Roman ruins of Baalbek, Lebanon, in 2001, I noticed a non-descript entrance to a strange little museum literally dug into the actual temple base—festooned with banners and photos of the Ayatollah and various heroes of various terrorist movements. Well-armed teenagers on motorbikes and in pickup trucks were scurrying in and out of this ‘Museum of Truth and Friendship’ or whatever it was euphemistically called. I asked my guide if I could go have a look at the ‘museum.’ He simply replied, ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’ Perhaps it really was a museum of sorts, but as I walked around the 1,800-year-old temple atop the ‘museum,’ I couldn’t help thinking I was walking on a massive munitions store. A mysterious, walled military compound in plain view atop a nearby hill didn’t do much to settle my nerves. Which raises this question: If Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist groups seem to have no qualms using priceless heritage sites as ‘shields,’ wouldn’t it follow that homes, schools or any other public or private building are used this way as well? That day, I understood that in the war on terror, the line between ‘civilian’ and ‘military’ targets no longer holds. And if the Lebanese government really wants to shield their World Heritage sites from bombardment, the first step would be to evict some of the less desirable tenants.”—Raymond Girard, in a letter to the editor in today’s National Post. (National Post, July 26) SHORT TAKES MORE ISRAELIS WOUNDED IN HEZBOLLAH ROCKET ATTACKS—(Jerusalem) Hezbollah continued to fire rocket barrages at northern Israel on Wednesday afternoon. At least 130 rockets were fired at the Tiberias, Safed, Rosh Pina, and Kiryat Shmona. At least 55 Israelis were wounded from rocket attacks in some 35 locations in the country's North, Magen David Adom reported. (Jer. Post, July 26) EIGHT GOLANI SOLDIERS KILLED IN BATTLE—(Jerusalem) Dozens of Hezbollah gunmen, armed with anti-tank missiles, machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests, executed a well-planned ambush on Israeli forces on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail, a known Hezbollah stronghold. The attack devastated Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, which left eight soldiers dead, including three officers, and another 22 wounded. BUSH OFFERS LEBANON $30 MILLION—(Washington) American ships and helicopters began delivering US$30-million in aid to help head off a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. The package, part of US$150-million in international aid requested by the UN, “is designed in recognition of the fact that innocent men, women and children are being hurt,” said Tony Snow, White House press secretary. (National Post, July 25) WHILE MOST CANADIANS SUPPORT ISRAEL, QUEBECERS DO NOT—(Ottawa) Almost two in three Canadians believe Israel’s military action in Lebanon is justified, a new poll has revealed. The survey, conducted online by Ipsos Reid for CanWest News Service and Global National, found 64 per cent of Canadians believed Israel’s action is either somewhat justified or completely justified. However, fifty-seven per cent of Quebecers believed the Israeli response is “not all justified.” When asked which side should compromise in order to secure a ceasefire, 63 per cent of Canadians said it was “those who kidnapped the Israeli soldiers,” while 53 per cent of Quebecers said it was the Israeli government. (National Post, July 25) CANADIAN PUBLIC SATISFIED WITH EVACUATION—(Ottawa) An Ipsos-Reid survey of 1,023 people, conducted on July 20 on the Internet for CanWest News Service and Global National, found 66 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the government’s response to “the largest evacuation of Canadian citizens in Canada’s history.” Only 34 per cent felt the government response was “slow and unacceptable,” with the strongest criticism coming from Quebec, where 50 per cent of respondents were unhappy. The survey also found 56 per cent of respondents believed the evacuees were “unreasonable in demanding that the government get them out of the war zone quicker and without cost.” But 57 per cent of respondents in Quebec disagreed with that view. (National Post, July 22) QUEBEC: ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT HIGHEST—(Montreal) A majority of Canadians expressed a positive view of each of the three religious groups—Christians, Jews and Muslims—mentioned in a poll conducted by Leger Marketing. However, 40 per cent of Quebecers reported a somewhat negative attitude toward Muslims, compared with 14 per cent toward Christians and 18 per cent toward Jews—the highest negative numbers for each group. Results of the poll were likely influenced by the recent arrest of 17 terror suspects in Toronto and the recent violence between Israel and Lebanon, says Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies. (National Post, July 22) SHARON’S CONDITION DETERIORATES—(Jerusalem) Ariel Sharon was taken to an intensive care unit at an Israeli hospital as his condition worsened. Doctors at the Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv said 78-year-old former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who fell into a coma after a stroke on January 4, was suffering from an accumulation of fluids in his body and problems with the functioning of his kidneys. (National Post, July 24; JTA, July 26) RADICAL CLERIC TRIED TO EVACUATE—(London) An Islamist preacher barred from Britain for his radical views tried to join the British evacuation from Lebanon but was turned away. The Syrian born Omar Bakri Mohammed, who settled in Britain in 1985, was banned from re-entering the country last August when the government ruled his presence was “not conducive to the public good.” He headed the radical al-Muhajiroun group in London until 2004 and had praised the 9/11 hijackers as the “magnificent 19.” Bakri said he did not want to return to Britain. “I applied for them to give me a visitor’s visa, not to appeal against the decision to withdraw my indefinite leave to stay in the UK,” he told BBC radio July 21 from Beirut. (National Post, July 22)
Volume VI, No. 1,407 • Tuesday, July 25, 2006 GOD'S ARMY HAS PLANS TO
RUN THE WHOLE MIDDLE EAST “You are the sun of Islam, shining on the universe!” This is how Muhammad Khatami, the mullah who was president of Iran until last year, described Hezbollah last week. It would be no exaggeration to describe Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shi’ite militia — as Tehran’s regional trump card. Each time Tehran has played it, it has won. As war rages between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran policymakers think that this time, too, they can win. “I invite the faithful to wait for good news,” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Tuesday. “We shall soon witness the elimination of the Zionist stain of shame.” What are the links between Hezbollah and Iran? In 1982 Iran had almost no influence in Lebanon. The Lebanese Shi’ite bourgeoisie that had had close ties with Iran when it was ruled by the Shah was horrified by the advent of the clerics who created an Islamic republic. Seeking a bridgehead in Lebanon, Iran asked its ambassador to Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a radical mullah, to create one. Mohtashamipour decided to open a branch in Lebanon of the Iranian Hezbollah (the party of God). After many meetings in Lebanon Mohtashamipour succeeded: in its founding statement it committed itself to the “creation of an Islamic republic in Lebanon”. To this end hundreds of Iranian mullahs, political “educators” and Islamic Revolutionary Guards were dispatched to Beirut. Within two years several radical Shi’ite groups in Lebanon, including some with Marxist backgrounds, had united under the Hezbollah name and became the main force resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon after the expulsion of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1983. Terror has been its principal weapon. Throughout the 1980s Hezbollah kidnapped more than 200 foreign nationals in Lebanon, most of them Americans or western Europeans (including Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy). It organised the hijacking of civilian aircraft and more or less pioneered the idea of suicide bombings against American and French targets, killing almost 1,000 people, including 241 US marines in Beirut and 58 French paratroopers… Once the Iran-Iraq war was over, Tehran found other uses for its Lebanese asset. It purged and then reshaped Hezbollah to influence the broader course of regional politics while using it to wage a low-intensity war against Israel. In 2000, when the Israelis evacuated the strip they controlled in southern Lebanon, Tehran presented the event as the “first victory of Islam over the Zionist crusader camp” and Hezbollah was lauded across the Arab world… To prop up that myth, Tehran invested in a propaganda campaign that included television “documentaries”, feature films and books and magazine articles. The message was simple: while secular ideologies—from pan-Arabism to Arab socialism—had failed to liberate an inch of Arab territory, Islamism, in its Iranian Khomeinist version working through Hezbollah, had achieved “total victory” over Israel… …Hezbollah was launched with just £13m. After that, according to best estimates, Iran spent £32m to £54m a year on its Lebanese assets. Even if we add the cost of training Hezbollah fighters and equipping them with hardware, Hezbollah (the strongest fighting force in the Middle East after Iran and Israel) has not cost Iran more than £1.3 billion over two decades. According to Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s number two, the party has an annual budget of £279m, much of which comes from businesses set up by the movement… In its power base in southern Lebanon, particularly south Beirut and the Bekaa valley, it is possible for a visitor to spend a whole week without stepping outside a Hezbollah business unit: the hotel he checks into, the restaurant he eats in, the taxi that takes him around, the guide who shows him the sights and the shop where he buys souvenirs all belong to the party. Hezbollah is a state within the Lebanese state. It controls some 25% of the national territory. Almost 400,000 of Lebanon’s estimated 4m inhabitants live under its control. It collects its own taxes with a 20% levy, known as “khoms”, on all incomes. It runs its own schools, where a syllabus produced in Iran is taught at all levels. It also runs clinics, hospitals, social welfare networks and centres for orphans and widows. The party controls the elected municipal councils and appoints local officials, who in theory should be selected by the central government in Beirut. To complete its status as a virtual state, the party maintains a number of unofficial “embassies”: the one in Tehran is bigger and has a larger number of staff than that of Lebanon itself. Hezbollah also has its own media including a satellite television channel, Al-Manar (the lighthouse), which is watched all over the Arab world, four radio stations, newspapers and magazines plus a book publishing venture. The party has its own system of justice based on sharia and operates its own police force, courts and prisons… Its relationship with the rest of Lebanon is complex; it occupies 14 seats in the 128-seat national assembly and holds two portfolios in the council of ministers. But it still describes itself as “a people-based movement fighting on behalf of the Muslim world”. The backbone of all that is Hezbollah’s militia, a fighting force of about 8,000 men, trained and armed with the latest weapons by Iran and Syria. Of these about 2,000 men represent an elite force under the direct command of the party’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, a former pupil of the late Ayatollah Khomeini… [T]he party also claims more than 30,000 reservists. Arab and western experts concur that Hezbollah’s militia is a stronger fighting force than the Lebanese army that is supposed to disarm it under United Nations resolution 1559. Also, most soldiers in the official Lebanese army are Shi’ites who would balk at fighting their own. Accounts concerning Hezbollah’s arsenal of weapons vary. The militia is said to be armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and an Iranian rapid-fire gun initially modelled on the Israeli Uzi. The party’s crown jewels, however, are an estimated 14,000 rockets and missiles shipped in from Iran over the past six years. Most of these are modified versions of the Soviet-designed Katyusha. The party also has some Chinese-made Silkworm missiles for special use in naval warfare… A few minutes’ drive south from central Beirut takes you into what appears to be a different country… Once you enter Hezbollah land, the scene changes. You feel as if you are in Qom, the Iranian holy city, with men sporting bushy beards and women covered by mandatory hijab, milling around in noisy narrow streets fronted by nondescript shops. Billboards that advertise global bands in Beirut are used in Hezbollah land for pasting giant portraits of Khomeini and the Iranian “supreme guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Not surprisingly Hezbollah describes its territory as “Dar al-Iman” (House of Faith)... Support for Hezbollah cuts across the political divides within the Iranian ruling establishment. Whether “reformist” or “hardliner”, Iran’s ruling mullahs and their political associates look to Hezbollah as a reflection of their own revolutionary youth. Last week parliamentary members of the Islamic Majlis in Tehran set aside their disputes to unite in their demand to go and fight alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon if Sheikh Nasrallah called them. Why has Tehran decided to play its Lebanese card now? Part of the answer lies in Washington’s decision last May to reverse its policy towards Iran by offering large concessions on its nuclear program. Tehran interpreted that as a sign of weakness. Ahmadinejad believes that his strategy to drive the “infidel” out of the Islamic heartland cannot succeed unless Arabs accept Iran’s leadership. The problem is that since the Iranian regime is Shi’ite it would not be easy to sell it to most Arabs, who are Sunni. To overcome that hurdle, it is necessary to persuade the Arabs that only Iran is sincere in its desire and capacity to wipe Israel off the map. Once that claim is sold to the Arabs, so Ahmadinejad hopes, they would rally behind his vision of the Middle East instead of the “American vision”. That strategy pushed Israel to the top of Tehran’s agenda. This is why, in May, Tehran became the first country to grant the Hamas government in the occupied territories an emergency grant of £27m to cope with a freeze imposed by European Union aid and other international donations. As moderate Arab countries have distanced themselves from Hamas, Iran along with Syria has stepped in. The pincer war launched by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel is also related to domestic politics. In the occupied territories, Hamas needs to marginalise Mahmoud Abbas’s PLO and establish itself as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In Lebanon, Hezbollah wants to prevent the consolidation of power in the hands of a new pro-American coalition government led by Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, and Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader. …If the pincer war against Israel is won, Iran would be able to expand its zone of influence, already taking shape in Iraq and assured in Syria, to take in Lebanon and Gaza. This would be the first time since the 7th century that Persian power has extended so far to the west. The strategy is high risk. If the Israelis manage to crush Hamas and destroy Hezbollah’s military machine, Iran’s influence will diminish massively. Defeat could revive an internal Hezbollah debate between those who continue to support a total and exclusive alliance with Iran until the infidel, led by America, is driven out of the Middle East and those who want Hezbollah to distance itself from Tehran and emphasise its Lebanese identity. One reason why Hezbollah has found such little support among Arabs in Egypt and Saudi Arabia this time is the perception that it is fighting Israel on behalf of Iran, a Persian Shi’ite power that has been regarded by the majority of Arab Sunnis as an ancestral enemy… The mini war that is taking place between Israel and Hezbollah is, in fact, a proxy war in which Iran’s vision for the Middle East clashes with the administration in Washington. What is at stake is not the exchange of kidnapped Israeli soldiers with Arab prisoners in Israel. Such exchanges have happened routinely over five decades. The real issue is who will set the agenda for the Middle East: Iran or America? IRAN'S
SHOWDOWN WITH THE WEST …We don't know whether Hezbollah anticipated the strong Israeli reaction to its kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. That means we don't know whether Hezbollah intended to trigger a major regional war—or whether it complacently assumed it could pressure Israel into a 400-to-1 prisoner exchange like the one Hezbollah extracted in 2004. But [we do know]that Hezbollah is financed, equipped, and trained by the Iranian secret service. It carries out terror missions on behalf of Iran. For all practical purposes, Hezbollah is an arm of the Iranian state. And when Hezbollah goaded Israel into war, the war it triggered was not a war between Israel and Lebanon. The war Hezbollah provoked is a war between Israel and Iran, with Hezbollah as Iran's proxy--and the people of Lebanon as Iran's victims. The Lebanese have been kidnapped by Iran as surely as those two Israeli soldiers abducted on the northern border. Israel has recognized that tragic fact. It has fought this war on its northern border as humanely as it can. Flip the switch in Beirut and the lights come on; open the taps, and the water flows. Essential services have been spared. The runways at Beirut Airport have been bombed to stop reinforcements to Hezbollah, but the control towers and the newly built terminal have been spared because Lebanon will need them later. Unintended civilian casualties have tragically occurred, as they do in any war. But Israel's sincere and costly attempts to minimize the loss of innocent life present a stark contrast with Hezbollah's deliberately atrocious war methods. Hezbollah has boasted that it has tried to fire missiles into Haifa's chemical factories, in hope of releasing gases to poison the civilian population. Hezbollah rocket warheads arrive crammed with ball bearings, so as to inflict maximum death and suffering upon the civilian populations at which they are fired. Nobody wants the war to last a minute longer than it needs to. But ironically, letting this war go to the finish would be a far more humane policy than the UN's call for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. If the war ends today, it ends with Hezbollah bloodied, but intact. It ends with Hezbollah still in possession of much of southern Lebanon, ready to be resupplied and reinforced by Syria and Iran. It ends with Hezbollah able to boast that it fought a war with Israel that ended with Israeli concessions. In other words: it ends with a Hezbollah, which is to say an Iranian, victory. What would happen then? Well, such a victory would finish forever the hopes of those Lebanese, the majority of the population, who want to see their country regain its national independence. And it would embolden the mullahs of Iran. In the early 1990s, the mullahs launched a global terror campaign. They assassinated Iranian dissident exiles in the streets of Paris and the restaurants of Berlin. In 1994, they bombed the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing almost 100 people, and bombed the Israeli embassy. In 1996 they attacked the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 17 Americans. That last attack was too much even for the Clinton admininstration, which issued an ultimatum to the Iranians. Overt Iranian violence subsided. Instead, the Iranians redoubled their investment in their nuclear bomb program so that next time, they could kill with impunity. "Next time" is now here. Intended or not, the war on Israel's northern border is Iran's showdown with the West. Now see the stakes if Iran loses. If Hezbollah is destroyed as a military force, Iran loses its most potent weapon of attack and retaliation against the Western world. Through the years of negotiating with Iran over its nuclear bomb program, the Iranians have repeatedly threatened: "If you should dare ever to strike our nuclear facilities, we will unleash a global Hezbollah terror campaign against oil in the Persian Gulf, against Israel, against Europe, against the United States!" No more Hezbollah means no more such terror threats. When negotiations over the nuclear program resume, they will resume with the West powerfully strengthened and Iran visibly weakened by the failure of Iran's own reckless aggression. This will be Israel's achievement--and Israel's latest gift to the peace of the world. To achieve this positive result, |