The Assault, The Response
Hezbollah knew well what it was doing to Lebanon in unleashing a no-holds-barred war with Israel. Hezbollah made the decision that the Lebanese population, and in particular that segment of the Lebanese population in the south of the country where Hezbollah has comfortably embedded itself among its enthusiastic supporters who regard the group as their liberators would happily sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. The greater cause, needless to say: the elimination of the State of Israel.Provoke, taunt, move by stealth to augment and increase your arsenal - and strike. No one among the Hezbollah expected Israel to be supine in acceptance of such overt provocation amounting to a de facto declaration of war. Hezbollah is jubilant; they have achieved the face-off they hungered for. Lebanon is appalled. This is not what they hungered for. But Hezbollah? War is, after all, the name of their game and their fame, both local and within the greater Arab community which supports them.
Hezbollah, like its cousin-in-purpose Hamas, is intent on burnishing its reputation as the "liberator". They chafed at the bit, could hardly contain themselves with glee, that they were able to outwit the wily enemy. They succeeded in capturing two soldiers, killing others, and enticing an Israeli tank and its unwary inhabitants bent on rescuing their kidnapped confreres, into an explosive ambush. And didn't the self-congratulations, the blasts heavenward in celebration elevate their spirits!
By this well-planned manoeuvre Hezbollah has sparked the conflict they sought, something their incessant lobbing of rockets into Israeli territory hadn't managed to grant them. Hezbollah proudly proclaims that more is yet to come - wait for it! And so they do, rocket after rocket, after missiles of increasing size and deadlier war-heads. Hezbollah leader Hassam Nasrallah insists on "confrontation without limits":
We are in our full strength and power. We will choose the place and the time and we will not let the enemy impose the means or place to use their weapons...we are just beginning.Nasrallah assures Arabs across the region that there will be "more surprises". He proclaims that Hezbollah is fighting Israel on behalf of the Islamic nation.
You Arab and Muslim people must take a position toward your future, the future of your children. The peoples of the Arab and Islamic world have a historic opportunity to score a defeat against the Zionist enemy.Hezbollah cares nothing about the incendiary peril in which it places the country providing it reluctant refuge, let alone its vulnerable citizenry. As for Lebanon's disingenuous claim of non-involvement, of the classical "innocent bystander" variety, that too won't wash in view of its flouting of the UN's directive to it to disarm and oust Hezbollah. These urgent directions coming from a body not known for its warmth toward Israel. Lest it be conveniently overlooked, Hezbollah has 14 seats in the Lebanese parliament; it is part and parcel of the government.
Common sense alone should have prevailed. Give refuge to an illegal belligerent intent on the destruction of your neighbour and you make of yourself a target of retaliation by default. How wise is that?
The Lebanese people having finally, after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, risen as one to oust Syria from Lebanon (its long-time dictates to a quasi-Lebanese government and the silent bleeding of the country's assets and economic resources to come to a halt, under international pressures and the peoples' revolt), should have gone further and demanded the ouster or disarmament of Hezbollah instead of allowing it official status by "democratic" process, installing Hezbollah into the Lebanese cabinet.
Hezbollah evolved into a legitimately-embraced political entity, a respected provider of social services on the one hand, while forming an ever effectively-deadly Republican Guard to taunt, provoke and bomb Lebanon's neighbour. Is this how a responsible population and government govern themselves, ensure their futures? Can one confer credence and give sympathy when the inevitable results come "out of the blue"?
There is one cure and one cure only for a collective death wish, and that is to grant it possibility. The State of Israel has declared itself to be fed up with this non-ending cat and mouse game of death. They will tolerate no more. They have a legitimate right to defend themselves, their very existence, against the deadly threat and intent of an implacable enemy.
Lebanese in the Middle East and abroad are stunned at this turn of events. "Everything was normal" they moan, the country was re-building its vital infrastructure, its economy, and feeling good about itself, after their intolerable torments of a civil war and a foreign occupation which bled them dry. Beirut was guiding the country to complete normalcy, to a new era. In fact, nothing was "normal" for their Israeli neighbours whom Hezbollah continued to bomb over the years.
Yet Lebanese still don't get it. They hiss their outrage and hatred of the "Zionist entity", placing blame there, instead of where it belongs. If Hezbollah is firing deadly rockets at Israel from their peaceful civilian redoubt who is then responsible when Israel fires back in self defence?
posted by Pieface @ Monday, July 17, 2006
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