generalspeaking

No Time Out This Time

The assault is continuing, and so it must. Israel's offensive foray into Lebanon to battle Hezbollah after the murder and capture of several of its soldiers lasted sixteen days. Its aerial attacks then were meant to target Hezbollah infrastructure, rocket launchers, militias. And, as history tells us, because Hezbollah chose to place themselves and their structures, their weapons caches and their rocket launchers in the midst of dense civilian enclaves, the death toll of civilians was unavoidably high. This suited the purposes of Hezbollah very well.

It ensured that the world would be enraged at the well-filmed and -televised footage of innocent Palestinians in Lebanon being slaughtered by the heedless Israeli military. The carnage that the viewing public in the international community was exposed to to elicit sympathy and disgust often was cleverly staged, the footage viewed was often tampered with, but the publicity that Hezbollah garnered from their techniques at managing public display and response was invaluable to them in its sympathy-quotient.

Condemnation against the 'disproportional' military response by Israel against Hezbollah and the Lebanese-based Palestinians was loud and indignantly forceful. Israel, always sensitive of world opinion, always under the sledge-hammer reality of expectations that it behave in a manner no other country, defending its soil and its citizens is prepared to submit to, allowed itself to be persuaded to pull back its forces prematurely.

It did so at a time when its purpose in attacking Hezbollah in attempting to rout it and disable and disarm the terrorist group intent on destroying Israel, was obviously inconclusive. The Israel Defence Forces had not yet arrived at the point where it could be conclusively demonstrated it had succeeded in its intent. So that when Israel agreed to a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, it retreated without accomplishing its purpose. And that condition led to victory celebrations from Hezbollah.

The damage to the reputation of Israel as a mighty defender of its right of existence against the greater majority of its Middle East enemies suffered irreparable damage. Emboldening its enemies to the extent that they felt they represented a superior military presence, capable of mounting a full-scale assault on a number of fronts, when they deemed the time to be right. Hezbollah, since then, under the noses of the UN peacekeeping border forces has been building up its armament reserves, and Hamas has been doing the same.

Both have been generously provisioned and funded by Iran and Syria, the two remaining Middle East countries whose singular purpose it is to target Israel for annihilation, with their proxy terror militias softening up the process. Their larger agenda, to bring Islamism to triumphant ascendancy throughout the Middle East has a greater presence of concern for the other countries of the geography, who look on at a remove from the drama playing out between Iran and Israel.

Israel has learned a stern lesson from its war with Hezbollah. It must conclude this assault on Hamas with a greater measure of success, to leave no doubt that it has the capacity and the capability to control its future in the area. The lesson learned in 2006 was a sobering, miserable one for Israel, one that left it shaken and demoralized by the incompletion of its mission, by the comfort it rendered its implacable enemies.

Israel's actions in mounting an offensive defence against the constant rocket attacks has great legitimacy in international law which upholds a country's right to defend itself. Its actions in mounting an offensive against Hamas has a greater moral authority than that; to do otherwise is to submit to the tyranny of a demented, death-dealing, death-loving pathology of hatred cloaking itself in religious devotion.

The bleak perversity of spirituality taking the guise of a cleric who revelled in stirring jihadist-bent faithful to embark on further suicide missions bespeaks the emptiness of their religious devotion. Nizar Rayyan, with four wives and a dozen children, saw nothing amiss in sending off one of his sons on a suicide mission in 2001, to murder two Israelis for the greater glory of Islam. This cleric was responsible for another attack where ten Israelis were killed in 2004.

His home was bombed by the air strikes; he was killed, two of his wives also, along with several of his children. Hamas will miss him, because he inspired them to resort to ever more glorious heights of mass murder of Israelis. His bombed home was also an arms and weapons storehouse, a communications centre, and a meeting place for terrorists. It served as well as an extremely useful camouflage for an escape tunnel. He has ascended to martyrdom, a distinction well earned.

The Israeli air force had skilfully identified, with military precision, the location of various Hamas structures, purposefully to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible. In this instance, there was no avoiding a number of civilian casualties, and the structure pinpointed for destruction was a high-value target.

There is no denying, even by Hamas, that most of those who have been killed by the aerial bombardments represent Hamas militia members. A BBC reporter living in Gaza, affirmed that "The Hamas security compounds are in the middle of the city"; his own balcony overlooked some of those emplacements. The IAF undertook several overnight sorties, in the process destroying a mosque in Khan Yunis, a college which served as a terrorist training center and several smuggling tunnels. They had been used as weapons storage facilities or contained terrorists.

There should be no thought of pulling out before the work has been fully completed, and the ongoing threat by Hamas against the lawful existence of the State of Israel not merely diminished, but vanquished.

Labels: Israel, Terrorism, World News

posted by Pieface @ Friday, January 02, 2009