FULL ARTICLES

“ISLAMISTS HAVE ADOPTED THE NAZI LEGACY”

An explicit debt
By Daniel Johnson
The New York Sun
July 27, 2006

www.nysun.com/article/36866

This is the first Middle East war in which the main threat to Israel comes, not from secular Arab nationalism, but from Islamism. Both Hizbullah and Hamas draw their main inspiration, armaments, and funding from Islamist sources, ranging from the Sunni ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Shiite demagogues of Iran. What unites them all is a fanatical dedication to the destruction of Israel.

There are, however, parallels between the present war and previous campaigns waged against Israel by Arab nationalists. One thing that Arab nationalists and Islamists clearly have in common, though it is usually ignored in the Western media, is their explicit debt to the Nazis.

This extends even to overt Nazi symbolism. I am indebted to one of the most seasoned observers of the Middle East, Tom Gross, for a photograph of a Hizbullah rally on the Lebanese side of the border fence, shortly before the present conflict. With houses in the Israeli town of Metullah in the background, hundreds of uniformed Hizbullah terrorists are raising their arms in a Nazi-style salute. This obscene ceremony, complete with yellow standards and mullah commanders taking the salute, was happening in full view of Israeli civilians. Mr. Gross asks pointedly, “Are all those now attacking Israel around the world even capable of imagining what an elderly Holocaust survivor who happened to glance across the fence might have felt?”

Hizbullah’s Nazi salute is not just a historical curiosity, though it evokes memories of Hitler’s support for Arab agitators such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem or the pro-Nazi coup in Iraq. Today the Nazi legacy manifests itself in Holocaust denial, an obsession that unites the most extreme Islamists, such as President Ahmadinejad with “moderate” secularists like the President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Arabs appropriated anti-Semitic ideology directly from the Nazis and have recycled it ever since. During the dark days of appeasement in the 1930s, a Hungarian emigre philosopher, Aurel Kolnai, wrote a book about the Third Reich entitled “The War against the West.” That is exactly what the hydra-headed forces of Islamism think they are fighting right now.

In the 1950s, the Baathist parties in Syria and Iraq modeled themselves on Hitler’s heady brew of nationalism and socialism, while rejecting western democracy. Charismatic dictators from Nasser and Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat turned themselves into little Hitlers. Today, Islamists have adopted that Nazi legacy too, using a sham democracy merely to bolster theocracy. However, the Nazi connection is usually mentioned by Arab nationalists and Islamists sotto voce, because they constantly identify Zionism with Nazism in their propaganda.

A second key similarity between today’s Islamists and past Arab nationalists relates less to ideology than to geopolitics. Both movements are more or less openly imperialist. As the historian Efraim Karsh convincingly shows in his new book “Islamic Imperialism,” the pursuit of empire has been a constant theme since the time of Muhammad.

Both Islamists and Arab nationalists, however, deploy anti-imperialist rhetoric against Israel and the West. Ayatollah Khomeini notoriously denounced America as “the Great Satan” while attempting to annex his neighbor, Iraq. The purpose of Osama bin Laden’s jihad on behalf of “oppressed Muslims” is to subject them to a universal Caliphate. Even as Nasser dreamt of what John Dulles called “an empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean,” the Egyptian dictator posed as the champion of the “non-aligned” nations, struggling against European colonialism and superpower hegemony.

All these and other “anti-imperialist” empire-builders, of course, were and are happy to accept help from Western powers when it suits them. Their power depends on their ability to manipulate the free world: during the Cold War by playing off one superpower against the other, more recently by setting Americans against Europeans, Russians or Chinese.

The issue of imperialism is invariably accompanied by much hypocrisy. Today, for example, America is criticized because of its refusal to intervene to stop Israel from retaliating against Hizbullah. Apart from the British, Condoleezza Rice is almost isolated at the Rome conference on Lebanon. But America’s critics are demanding that a superpower should intervene to prevent a sovereign state from defending its population against bombardment by proxies of a government that has declared its intention of wiping that state off the map. What could be more imperialist than such an intervention?

The classic example of Arab exploitation of the West’s confusion over imperialism was the Suez crisis of 1956. Fifty years ago this week Gamal Nasser, the Egyptian dictator, nationalized the Suez Canal, thereby precipitating an international crisis. The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, decided it was his duty to stop Nasser from becoming an Egyptian Hitler. President Eisenhower, campaigning for re-election, refused to have anything to do with it. The French, still embroiled in Algeria, feared Nasser and plotted with the Israelis to overthrow him. Mr. Eden, lacking American support, joined in this hare-brained scheme at the last minute, keeping Mr. Eisenhower in the dark.

And so, in late October, the crisis came to a head. Israel attacked and swiftly defeated Egypt in the Sinai. In a moment of hubris, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion’s chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, announced to the troops the “Third Kingdom of Israel.” After some delay, an Anglo-French air-and seaborne force captured Port Said. Nasser seemed doomed.

But Mr. Eisenhower reasonably enough felt betrayed, and appalled by what he saw as a reassertion of colonialism. He demanded that the British and French withdraw, and held a financial gun to Mr. Eden’s head: the pound sterling collapsed on the exchange markets. This left the British with no choice but to pull out, with the French reluctantly following suit.

Meanwhile the Soviet Union, led by Khrushchev, faced a crisis of its own in Hungary. Recently released documents seen by Professor Jonathan Haslam apparently reveal that Khrushchev had resolved not to crush the Hungarian uprising, when the Anglo-French landing in Suez persuaded him that Soviet prestige required a show of force. So Hungary was invaded and 200,000 refugees fled. Eastern Europe had to wait three more decades for freedom.

The Russians followed this up with an ultimatum to the British, French and Israelis, threatening nuclear war. Ben-Gurion wrote that the note “could have been written by Hitler,” but the threat was serious. He resolved there and then to acquire nuclear weapons in order to stand up to nuclear blackmail. With covert help from the French, Israel built its own nuclear reactor and eventually its own bomb.

Nobody comes out of Suez well. None of the key players – Eden, Eisenhower, Ben-Gurion – saw the bigger picture. The British and French deluded themselves that they could act without America, while the Americans failed to foresee the effect on the Arab world of humiliating the European powers without filling the power vacuum in the Middle East. So Nasser snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and the Arab war against the West began. Fifty years on, it is by no means over. Indeed, if those Nazi-saluting Hizbullah thugs are anything to go by, we may have seen nothing yet.

 

EGELAND WAS TALKING NONSENSE

For Israel this is a ‘proportionate’ response
By Dominic Lawson
The Independent
July 25, 2006

comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/dominic_lawson/article1195260.ece

As he walked through the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli air force, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, described what he saw, inevitably, as “a humanitarian tragedy.” He was talking nonsense. It is, of course, a human tragedy. But for some reason it is now the habit of every commentator – especially on the BBC – to add four meaningless syllables to the truth, as if it was necessary to impress upon listeners just how terrible it all is. We do not need to be impressed. No sentient person who has seen the pictures of children killed or orphaned in the hostilities between Hizbullah and Israel requires such clumsy finger-pointing.

What is needed, however, is a little bit of context. And where better to get it than in the words of Sayad Nasrallah, the General Secretary of Hizbullah in Lebanon? He is, after all, the man who planned the rocket attacks and military incursions into Northern Israel which have provoked the Israel Defence Forces into such dire retribution. Nine years ago, after his 18 year old son was killed by the IDF in an anti-Hizbullah operation, Nasrallah gave a very wide ranging interview which is now to be found on a website devoted to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini (look up on islam-pure.de if you want to see the full text).

Asked by his interviewer whether he felt hatred or grief at the loss of his son, Nasrallah ticked none of the above: “I am happy. He will certainly take us to paradise. As the family of a martyr we will experience that joy.” He went on to gloat that the then Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “no longer demands a security zone. He wants only a guarantee that we will not pursue him to Northern Israel. But never will we recognise the existence of a Northern Israel… the Jewish entity is the symbol of terrorism. There can be no peace with such an entity. ”

The interviewer points out – and how prescient that now seems – that if Nasrallah carried out his threats to continue its war against ‘the Jewish entity’ on Israeli soil then “Israel has threatened to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon – roads, bridges, electricity, water supply – to make the Lebanese realise what price they would have to pay for the attacks on Israel. Do you really want to risk everything that has been rebuilt after 15 years of civil war?” The Hizbullah leader responds: “We are very well aware of these threats. They are nothing new. They reflect nothing but sheer fear and helplessness; they prove that the Zionists are no longer able to defeat us by military means.” To which his interlocutor replies, rather bravely I think, “Oh yes they are”.

That feisty retort sheds some light on the other over-used word in the current crisis in Lebanon: ‘disproportionate’. What is the correctly proportionate response to a terrorist organisation which repeatedly sends rockets packed with ball bearings to cause maximum civilian casualties in your main domestic tourist resort? And what do you do if that organisation, backed by Iran and Syria, also has two ministers in the government of the country from which they are sending those rockets? President Chirac, whose former ambassador to London described Israel as “a shitty little country”, was among those Europeans who criticised Israel’s retaliation as “totally disproportionate.” This was the same President Chirac who in January declared that “states who would use terrorist means against us must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part. This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.” Or, in other words: we might nuke the bastards. Having already escalated the diplomatic language to “totally disproportionate”, imagine the words Chirac would unleash if the Israeli government this week threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Iran, unless its proxies in Lebanon desisted from their acts of terrorism.

We do not, of course, have any proof that Teheran has, as some allege, engineered the latest crisis to deflect the increasingly impatient Western powers from pursuing their action against Iran’s nuclear programme. Let us assume that it was a complete coincidence that the Hizbullah capture of two IDF conscripts (and the killing of eight others) within Israeli territory took place on the day after Javier Solana warned the chief Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani, that his country’s nuclear dossier would be referred back to the Security Council. And let us also accept that it is a complete coincidence that on his way back to Teheran from that bruising meeting, Ali Larijani dropped in to Damascus for a meeting with Hizbullah’s other backer, President Bashar Assad.

Who needs to construct conspiracy theories when everything is so plain to see on the geo-political chess board? Last week the Iranian News Channel broadcast a speech by the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel. Addressing his remarks to Israel – but for the benefit also of the crowd in front of him – Gholam Ali declared: “Today the confrontation is not only within the borders of Lebanon. It is taking place deep within your own land. Today your flourishing cities in the North of Israel are within the range of the fire of the fighters and lion cubs of Hizbullah. No place in Israel will be safe.” At which observation the crowd chanted “Khameini is the leader! Death to America! Death to England!” The speaker continued: “As said by Hassan Nasrallah, this courageous, vigilant and informed religious scholar, the war has just begun. To Hassan Nasrallah we say ‘well done’. This religious scholar roars like a lion and the blood of the Imam Khomeini rages in his veins.” To these remarks the crowd chants: “No more humiliation! No more humiliation!”

It is humiliation, in fact, which the Israeli government is trying to avoid. Perhaps a former military leader such as Ariel Sharon could have withstood the terrific domestic pressure for retaliatory measures – always assuming that he would have wanted to. But the new Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has no such track record with which to reassure the Israeli people. Like any democracy, Israel’s actions are ultimately conditioned by sensitivity to public opinion – its own and not other countries’. It was, after all, domestic public opinion rather than the requirements of military strategy which caused Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Its own people had sickened at the casualties to its conscript army. But when the Israeli public believes that national survival is at stake, as it has proved on a number of occasions since 1948, it will be deterred by no amount of international opprobrium. Although the British state was not founded upon of the experience of genocide, I suspect that most of the people of this country, in similar circumstances, would feel the same way.

EXTRACTS

OUT OF DISPROPORTION

Out of disproportion
By Ben Stein
American Spectator
July 21, 2006

… Let’s see. In World War II, the Germans bombed exactly no United States cities or towns. We bombed the hell out of them, day and night, for more than two years, including helping the British with firebombing Dresden, one of the most appalling civilian killings by a free people of all time.

Was it disproportionate? Well, no. The Nazis had bombed our allies, the British, in terror raids for years. They had started a world war. They had created a genocide unspeakable in human history. So, yes, there was horrible killing, but is anyone now saying it was disproportionate? Maybe a few, but not many.

… The Lebanese have admitted the terrorists into dominant positions in their government. In every way, Lebanon has made itself a haven for terrorists bombing civilians day in and day out in Israel. Is Israel finally standing up and saying enough “disproportionate”? Yes, if you think Israel and Jews should be permanent victims who suffer, bleed, and die in silence. No, if you believe Jews have the same rights as other people to defend themselves.

Look, if the Israelis wanted to inflict a lot of casualties from the air, they could. They have the second best air force in the world. Clearly, they are showing restraint. Three hundred dead is a lot, and every human’s death is sad unless he’s a terrorist, but we were killing 30,000 in a few hours in World War II and glorying in it. No news shows were showing German civilians getting fried and saying how sad it was. It was war against butchers and war is horrible, but it’s war, and to defend human decency, sometimes war is necessary. By any historic measure, Israel’s response to a decade of torment is extremely restrained…

(For the full piece, see www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10117.)

 

“CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME TV STATIONS ARE TRYING TO SHOW, DAMAGE FROM ISRAEL’S BOMBING OF LEBANON HAS BEEN EXTREMELY LIMITED”

Jenin massacre syndrome
Just like the spring of 2002, the international press prefers hype to facts
By Sever Plocker
Yediot Ahronot
July 23, 2006

After a lot of hesitancy and a short-lived attempt to take balanced positions, the worldwide left-wing has returned in full force to the “Jenin massacre syndrome.”*

… It took months for human rights organizations, even the United Nations, to issue their reports refuting Palestinian claims. There was no massacre in Jenin, no ethnic cleansing, no intentional destruction of hospitals. There was a bloody battle in which soldiers died on each side.

The fairytale about the “Jenin massacre” may have died, but were lessons learned? Some were… But in other cases, no lessons were learned. During the second week of fighting, Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon is currently being portrayed as the total destruction of Lebanon, of essential civilian infrastructure, as a human tragedy on the level of the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia.

Reading reports from left-leaning field reporters, one gets a picture that Beirut has been destroyed at least as badly as Dresden was during the Second World War. Foreign television channels use one section of footage over and over, showing the destruction of one neighborhood in south Beirut, to “show” what has happened throughout the city.

The most worrying thing about the current anti-Israel wave is its’ global scope: Leaders and opinion makers around Latin America, for example, have denounced Israel in some of the strongest terms imaginable. The UN Human Rights Commission has joined the chorus, as have international law organizations, cinema types, even journalists.

… And where is the truth in all this? The air force’s bombing of Lebanon have caused, as always happens in war, damage and destruction, but this damage has been extremely limited… In Beirut, to date, the airport has been hit, as have several strategic targets and buildings in the Shiite Quarter. That’s a far cry from the descriptions of horror being played out nightly on television screens, and of charges of war crimes.

The situation in south Lebanon is worse because of the planned civilian flight… civilians were forced to flee both southern Lebanon and northern Israel… talk of a humanitarian disaster that any honest person would feel revulsion about, fails to reflect reality. It is no more than horror propaganda that many prefer to believe, including many Israeli journalists. Analysts repeat the claims without verifying the facts, and preach moral lessons and philosophies based on these claims… There is no “destruction of Lebanon,” just like there was no “Jenin massacre.”

(For the full piece, see www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3280038,00.html.)

* For more on the “Jenin massacre syndrome,” see here.

 

“IF NOT NOW, WHEN? IF NOT BY THE ISRAELIS, WHO?”

Now isn’t the time for restraint
By Newt Gingrich
USA Today
July 18, 2006

… When compared with U.S. history lessons, the advice of the Group of Eight industrial nations to Israel is wrong. The communique says the No. 1 priority is a cease-fire that would effectively leave Hezbollah in possession of all its rockets. We’d never accept such advice for ourselves. The Israelis should not accept it for the same reasons: It would not end the threat.

Israel, a fellow democracy, has the same duty and right to protect its citizens from enemy attack. It is doing so while making every effort to avoid civilian casualties. The Israeli response is wholly justified based on a history where Israeli concessions to the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas terrorist alliance have consistently resulted in their enemies preparing for the next attack. The terrorists have been attacking with increased capability, brutality and violence aimed at civilians. This is only the latest cycle in an ongoing 58-year campaign to destroy Israel.

In 2000, the Israelis withdrew from southern Lebanon, creating an opportunity for peace. Instead of peace, for six years Iran, Syria and Hezbollah moved more than 10,000 missiles into the vacated area. More recently, the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to provide another circumstance for peace and an opportunity for a self-governing Palestinian people to work toward creating a place of prosperity, but instead Hamas created a place of terror. Now Israel is the target of more than 1,000 missiles from both Gaza and southern Lebanon in the past week alone.

… United Nations Resolution 1559, supported by the European Union, called for Hezbollah to be disarmed. If not now, when? If not by the Israelis, who?

… Finally, Iran and Syria must be forced to cease their support of Hezbollah and Hamas by the United States communicating to them such dire consequences that they could not sustain the relationships. And then we should be prepared, if necessary, to impose those consequences.

(For the full piece, see www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-07-18-gingrich-mideast-conflict_x.htm.)

 

ISRAEL HASN’T BEEN SO UNITED SINCE 1967

Grapes of wrath
Israel hasn’t been so united since 1967
By Bret Stephens
The Wall Street Journal
July 22, 2006

Bret Stephens reported on a tour of rocket-ravaged communities in northern Israel, and then went on to observe:

Tel Aviv may be the economic and cultural capital of Israel, Jerusalem its political and symbolic capital. But the Galilee is where Israelis come to play, the forested and breezy getaway from the sweltering coast and the incessant dramas of everyday life in this region. Israelis were prepared to give up sandy Gaza and might also have been prepared to do the same with the rocky West Bank, if only the Palestinians would behave themselves. Yet places make a nation as much as principles do, and the Galilee was one place no Israeli could part with if his country was still going to be worth living in.

So even as terror-stricken residents of the north flee, the rest of the country is prepared to fight, whatever the cost: A recent poll found that 80% of Israelis support the present military operations, and three-quarters of those would be prepared to launch a full-scale invasion of Lebanon if that is what it takes to defeat Hezbollah. No similar consensus has existed among Israelis since the 1967 Six Day War.

(For the full piece, see www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008692.)

 

“WILL WE MUSTER THAT RESOLVE BEFORE – OR ONLY AFTER – THE MULLAHS GET THE BOMB?”

It all boils down to Iran
By Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe
July 16, 2006

Opening a security conference in Tehran on July 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhorted the Islamic world to mobilize against Israel and “remove the Zionist regime.” People in the region are growing furious, he said. “It will not be long before this intense fury will lead to a huge explosion.”

Four days later, Hezbollah terrorists staged a raid across Israel’s northern border, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Over the next day, more than 120 rockets rained down across northern Israel. [Tom Gross adds: since then, about 2000 more rockets have hit Israeli civilian areas.]

… The top Hamas mastermind held a press conference in a Damascus ballroom last week, where he extolled the Syrian regime that shelters him. Syria is in turn protected by Iran, with which it signed a military cooperation pact in June. So it came as no surprise when Ahmadinejad warned Israel not to extend its military offensive to Syria, and threatened “a crushing response” if it did.

… “No one should have any lingering doubts about what’s going on in the Middle East,” writes Michael Ledeen, an expert on terrorism and Iran. “It’s war, and it now runs from Gaza into Israel, through Lebanon and thence to Iraq via Syria. There are different instruments, ranging from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon and on to the multifaceted ‘insurgency’ in Iraq. But there is a common prime mover, and that is the Iranian mullahcracy, the revolutionary Islamic fascist state that declared war on us 27 years ago and has yet to be held accountable.”

Twenty-seven years ago was 1979, the year that Islamist radicals loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini invaded the US embassy in Tehran and held dozens of American diplomats hostage for the next 444 days. Washington’s response was weak and feckless, as it would be time and again in the years that followed. Only after 9/11 did the United States finally acknowledge that it was in a war with militant Islam and began fighting back in earnest. But not against Iran, which continues, unscathed and unrepentant, to stoke the terrorist fires. Its goals, unchanged since Khomeini’s day, are to become the dominant power in the Middle East, to create Islamist regimes worldwide, to annihilate Israel, and to kill Americans… Regime change in Tehran will require American resolve. Will we muster that resolve before – or only after – the mullahs get the bomb?

(For the full piece, see
www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/07/16/it_all_boils_down_to_iran/.)

FULL ARTICLES

“ISRAEL CANNOT COEXIST WITH IRANIAN PROXIES PRESSING ON ITS BORDERS”

Israel’s next war has begun
Battle plans
By Yossi Klein Halevi
The New Republic
July 12, 2006

www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060710&s=halevi071206

The next Middle East war – Israel against genocidal Islamism – has begun. The first stage of the war started two weeks ago, with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim; now, with Hezbollah’s latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon. Ultimately, though, Israel’s antagonists won’t be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.

The goals of the war should be the destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel cannot coexist with Iranian proxies pressing in on its borders. In particular, allowing Hamas to remain in power – and to run the Palestinian educational system – will mean the end of hopes for Arab-Israeli reconciliation not only in this generation but in the next one too.

For the Israeli right, this is the moment of “We told you so.” The fact that the kidnappings and missile attacks have come from southern Lebanon and Gaza – precisely the areas from which Israel has unilaterally withdrawn – is proof, for right-wingers, of the bankruptcy of unilateralism. Yet the right has always misunderstood the meaning of unilateral withdrawal. Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn’t expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn’t an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn’t whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.

So it wasn’t the rocket attacks that were a blow to the unilateralist camp, but rather Israel’s tepid responses to those attacks. If unilateralists made a mistake, it was in believing our political leaders – including Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert – when they promised a policy of zero tolerance against any attacks emanating from Gaza after Israel’s withdrawal. That policy was not implemented – until two weeks ago. Now, belatedly, the Olmert government is trying to regain something of its lost credibility, and that is the real meaning of this initial phase of the war, both in Gaza and in Lebanon.

Still, many in Israel believe that, even now, the government is acting with excessive restraint. One centrist friend of mine, an Olmert voter, said to me, “If we had assassinated [Hamas leader] Haniyeh after the first kidnapping, [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah would have thought twice about ordering another kidnapping.” Israel, then, isn’t paying for the failure of unilateral withdrawal, but for the failure to fulfill its promise to seriously respond to provocations after withdrawal.

Absurdly, despite Israel’s withdrawal to the international borders with Lebanon and Gaza, much of the international community still sees the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers as a legitimate act of war: Just as Israel holds Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, so Hamas and Hezbollah now hold Israeli prisoners. One difference, though, is that inmates in Israeli jails receive visits from family and Red Cross representatives, while Israeli prisoners in Gaza and Lebanon disappear into oblivion. Like Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured by Hezbollah 20 years ago, then sold to Iran, and whose fate has never been determined. That is one reason why Israelis are so maddened by the kidnapping of their soldiers.

Another reason is the nature of the crimes committed by the prisoners whose release is being demanded by Hezbollah and Hamas. One of them is Samir Kuntar, a PLO terrorist who in 1979 broke into an apartment in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, took a father and child hostage, and smashed the child’s head against a rock. In the Palestinian Authority, Kuntar is considered a hero, a role model for Palestinian children.

The ultimate threat, though, isn’t Hezbollah or Hamas but Iran. And as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability – which the Israeli intelligence community believes could happen this year – an Israeli-Iranian showdown becomes increasingly likely. According to a very senior military source with whom I’ve spoken, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran; if that fails, then Israel is hoping for an American attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally. And, added the source, Israel has the operational capability to do so.

For Israelis, that is the worst scenario of all. Except, of course, the scenario of nuclear weapons in the hands of the patron state of Hezbollah and Hamas.

 

“HOW LONG WILL THE ARABS CONTINUE TO FIGHT ON BEHALF OF IRAN?”

Iran against the Arabs
By Michael Rubin
The Wall Street Journal
July 19, 2006

After Hamas kidnapped 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit on June 25, Israeli forces launched an assault on Gaza to win his release. Arab condemnation was swift. Saudi Arabia’s pro-government al-Jazira daily called Israel “a society of terrorists.” Egypt’s state-controlled al-Gumhuriyah condemned Israel’s “heinous crimes” in Gaza. Following a July 8 meeting in Tehran, foreign ministers from countries neighboring Iraq denounced the “brutal Israeli attacks.”

The crisis escalated four days later when Hezbollah terrorists infiltrated Israel’s northern border and kidnapped two soldiers. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the raid “an act of war,” and directed the military to launch an all-out assault on Hezbollah and targets throughout Lebanon. Neither Lebanese nor regional reaction to the opening of a second front was what Hezbollah expected. On July 14, Hezbollah’s al-Manar called upon “all Lebanese people to rally behind the Islamic resistance” and to fight Israel’s “flagrant aggression.”

They didn’t. No longer subject to Syrian occupation, Lebanese officials spoke freely. The Middle East Media Research Institute translated many reactions. “Lebanon... is not willing to be the spearhead of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” former President Amin Gemayel said. “Hezbollah will have to explain itself to the Lebanese,” Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told Le Figaro. The independent Beirut daily Al-Mustaqbal quoted Lebanese Communications Minister Marwan Hamada saying, “Syrian Vice President Faruq al-Shara gives the commands, Hezbollah carries them out, and Lebanon is the hostage.”

Nor did the wider Arab world rally in unanimity toward Hezbollah. “A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements [without]... consulting and coordinating with Arab nations,” the official Saudi Press Agency opined. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit included Hezbollah rocket attacks in his condemnation of terrorism. Even the Arab League, which seldom misses an opportunity to denounce Israel, offered only muted criticism. True, League Secretary General Amr Moussa condemned Israel’s “disproportionate attack,” after the July 15 meeting, but rather than just slam the Jewish state, Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, chided Hezbollah’s “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts.” Delegates from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the UAE backed Mr. al-Faisal. Ahmed al-Jarallah, editor of Kuwait’s Arab Times, condemned both Hezbollah and Hamas in an editorial that same day, writing, “Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of ‘these irregular phenomena’ is what Israel is doing.”

It may be tempting to think that acceptance of Israel is in the air. But such optimism is unfounded. There is no change of heart in Riyadh, Cairo or Kuwait. Saudi princes still finance Palestinian terror. Rather, the recent Arab tolerance toward Israel’s predicament and condemnation of Hezbollah signal recognition of a greater threat on the horizon. Wadi Batti Hanna, a columnist in Iraq’s Arab nationalist al-Ittijah al-Akhar daily, put it bluntly when, on July 15, he asked, “How long will the Arabs continue to fight on behalf of Iran?”

The Iranian menace is rising. Condoleezza Rice’s May 31 announcement that the Bush administration would engage Iran signaled U.S. weakness across the Middle East. “Why don’t you admit that you are weak and your razor is blunt?” Iranian Supreme Leader asked rhetorically four days later, as assembled crowds in Tehran called for America’s death. An Iranian Revolutionary Guards boat recently unveiled a banner reading, “U.S. cannot do a damn thing,” as it sailed past a U.S. navy ship in the Persian Gulf. Tehran’s confidence is high.

Even as Arab states routinely condemn U.S. foreign policy, they embrace the American umbrella. John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, respectively of the University of Chicago and Harvard, may argue that “the Israel Lobby” perverts U.S. interests; but Arab leaders understand that the only countries the U.S. military has fought to protect in the Middle East were Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The tiny Gulf emirates are defenseless without U.S. protection. There is hardly a state on the Arabian Peninsula that does not train with the U.S. military or welcome a small U.S. presence. But with U.S. congressmen proclaiming the defeat and vulnerability of U.S. troops in Iraq, and the Islamic Republic drawing closer to its nuclear goals, Tehran’s stock is rising at U.S. expense.

The signs of Arab unease have been growing over the last 18 months. Jordan’s King Abdullah II first raised alarm. In a Dec. 12, 2004 interview with Chris Matthews, he warned that the rise of Iranian-backed Shiite parties in Iraq could give rise to a Shiite “crescent” stretching from Iran to Lebanon. Abdulaziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, called Abdullah’s comments “ridiculous,” but the remarks resonated in Arab countries. True, the Shiites might account for only 10% of the world’s Muslims, but in the volatile region stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to Iran, the Sunnis and Shiites are near parity. That Shiites predominate in the oil-producing regions not only of Iran and Iraq but also in Saudi Arabia accelerates the fears. Satellite stations throw fuel on the fire. A July 12 political cartoon in the Iraqi daily al-Mutamar depicted a man pouring gasoline labeled sectarianism into a satellite dish.

The power of satellite stations to inflame sectarian passion is extraordinary. I was in Sweileh, Jordan, as news broke last November that Iraqi Shiite militias had tortured Sunni prisoners in detention. Al-Jazeera replayed the footage in gory detail. Cafes hushed and men shouted abuse at the TV screens. More recently, al-Jazeera amplified Osama bin Laden’s July 1 Internet message blaming “the people of the [Shiite] south” for violating Sunni cities like Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul. The situation worsened when Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen rampaged through the mixed Hay al-Jihad neighborhood on July 9, demanding identity cards and killing anyone with a Sunni name.

Most Arabs perceive Israel as small. Egypt – home to one of every three Arabs – has enjoyed a cold peace with Israel for more than a quarter-century. Gulf states, on the whole, would rather make money than directly fight Israel. While they do not like Israel’s existence, Jerusalem presents no threat. Not so Tehran. A giant with 70 million people, Iran is no status quo power. Its ideological commitment to export revolution is real. Across Lebanon and the region, Arab leaders see Hezbollah for what it is: An arm of Iranian influence waging a sectarian battle in the heart of the Middle East.

An old Arab proverb goes, “Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; and me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger.” Forced to make a choice, Sunni Arabs are deciding: The Jews are cousins; the Shiites, strangers. U.S. diplomats may applaud the new pragmatism, but the reason behind it is nothing to celebrate.

 

“THE OPERATIONS OF ISRAEL IN GAZA AND LEBANON ARE IN THE INTEREST OF PEOPLE OF ARAB COUNTRIES AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY”

No to Syria, Iran agents
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
The Arab Times
July 15, 2006

www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/opinion/view.asp?msgID=1242

People of Arab countries, especially the Lebanese and Palestinians, have been held hostage for a long time in the name of “resisting Israel.” Arab governments have been caught between political obligations and public opinion leading to more corruption in politics and economics. Forgetting the interests of their own countries the Hamas Movement and Hezbollah have gone to the extent of representing the interests of Iran and Syrian in their countries. These organizations have become the representatives of Syria and Iran without worrying about the consequences of their action.

Recently Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier and bombed Israeli settlements with locally manufactured missiles. Soon Hezbollah followed suit, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. Both these organizations claimed they had kidnapped Israeli soldiers to exchange them for Arab prisoners who are being held in Israeli jails. The fact that Hamas and Hezbollah gave the same reason for kidnapping Israeli soldiers gives us a glimpse their agenda, which is similar to the one followed by Syria and Iran in their conflict with the United States.

While the people of Palestine and Lebanon are paying the price of this bloody conflict, the main players, who caused this conflict, are living in peace and asking for more oil from Arab countries to support the facade of resisting Israel. With the Palestinian Authority close to collapse and the Lebanese government beginning to give up responsibility for what is happening in its territory, Saudi Arabia has been forced to come out of its diplomatic routine and indirectly hold Hezbollah responsible for what is happening Lebanon.

Without mentioning Hezbollah by name Saudi Arabia blamed certain “elements” inside Lebanon for the violence with Israel and said “it is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures adopted by certain elements within Lebanon without the knowledge of legal Lebanese authorities.” While reiterating its support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against Israeli occupation, Saudi Arabia has clearly said it is against irresponsible adventures undertaken by certain elements in the region without consulting the legal authorities putting all Arab nations at risk. The Kingdom has also said “these elements must take responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis created by them.” This angry response from Saudi Arabia has politically isolated Hezbollah and Hamas besides holding them responsible for their actions.

This attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has been doing all it can to protect the Arab world from Israeli aggression, is enough to unmask the adventurers, who have violated the rights of their own countries and tried put their people under the guardianship of foreign countries like Iran and Syria. A battle between supporters and opponents of these adventurers has begun, starting from Palestine to Tehran passing through Syria and Lebanon. This war was inevitable as the Lebanese government couldn’t bring Hezbollah within its authority and make it work for the interests of Lebanon. Similarly leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to rein in the Hamas Movement.

Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of “these irregular phenomena” is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community.

 

“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TURN A BLIND EYE TO EVIL FOR DECADES, HOPING IT WILL GO AWAY”

Thank you, Israel
By Brigitte Gabriel
The Lebanese Foundation for Peace
July 16, 2006

www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/2006/July/July16/July16a/july16a.html

For the millions of Christian Lebanese driven out of our homeland, “Thank you, Israel,” is the sentiment echoing from around the world. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, an international group of Lebanese Christians, made the following statement in a press release to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert concerning the latest Israeli attacks against Hezbollah:

“We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation.”

Their statement continues, “On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism.

We ask you for support, facilitation and logistics in order to win this struggle and achieve together the same objectives: Peace and Security for Lebanon and Israel and our future generations to come.”

The once dominate Lebanese Christians responsible for giving the world “the Paris of the Middle East” as Lebanon used to be known, have been killed, massacred, driven out of their homes and scattered around the world as radical Islam declared its holy war in the 70s and took hold of the country.

They voice an opinion that they and Israel have learned from personal experience, which is now belatedly being discovered by the rest of the world.

While the world protected the PLO withdrawing from Lebanon in 1983 with Israel hot on their heals, another more volatile and religiously idealistic organization was being born: Hezbollah, “the Party of God,” founded by Ayatollah Khomeini and financed by Iran. It was Hezbollah who blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October,1983 killing 241 Americans and 67 French paratroopers that same day. President Reagan ordered U.S. Multilateral Force units to withdraw and closed the books on the marine massacre and US involvement in Lebanon February 1984.

The civilized world, which erroneously vilified the Christians and Israel back then and continues to vilify Israel now, was not paying attention. While America and the rest of the world were concerned about the Israeli / PLO problem, terrorist regimes in Syria and Iran fanned Islamic radicalism in Lebanon and around the world.

Hezbollah’s Shiite extremists began multiplying like proverbial rabbits out-producing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament. Since the Israeli pull out in 2000, Lebanon has become a terrorist base completely run and controlled by Syria with its puppet Lebanese President Lahood and the Hezbollah “state within a state.”

The Lebanese army has less than 10,000 military troops. Hezbollah has over 4,000 trained militia forces and there are approximately 700 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. So why can’t the army do the job? Because the majority of Lebanese Muslims making up the army will split and unite along religious lines with the Islamic forces just like what happened in 1976 at the start of the Lebanese civil war.

It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology vs. Judeo Christian Westernism. Muslims who are now the majority of Lebanon’s population, support Hezbollah because they are part of the Islamic Ummah-the nation. This is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid.

The latest attacks on Israel have been orchestrated by Iran and Syria driven by two different interests. Syria considers Lebanon a part of “greater” Syria. Young Syrian President Assad and his Ba’athist military intelligence henchmen in Damascus are using this latest eruption of violence to prove to the Lebanese that they need the Syrian presence to protect them from the Israeli aggression and to stabilize the country. Iran is conveniently using its Lebanese puppet army Hezbollah, to distract the attention of world leaders meeting at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Apocalyptic Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the ruling Mullah clerics in Tehran want to assert hegemony in the Islamic world under the banner of Shia Mahdist madness. Ahmadinejad wants to seal his place as top Jihadist for Allah by make good his promise to “wipe Israel off the map.

No matter how much the west avoids facing the reality of Islamic extremism of the Middle East, the west cannot hide from the fact that the same Hamas and Hezbollah that Israel is fighting over there, are of the same radical Islamic ideology that has fomented carnage and death through terrorism that America and the world are fighting. This is the same Hezbollah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon. They have cells in over 10 cities in the United States. Hamas, has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away.

Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is an Iranian agent. He is not a free actor in this play. He has been involved in terrorism for over 25 years. Iran with its Islamic vision for a Shia Middle East now has its agents, troops and money in Gaza in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Behind this is this vision that drives the Iranian President Ahmadinejad who believes he is Allah’s “tool and facilitator” bringing the end of the world as we know it and the ushering in of the era of the Mahdi. He has a blind messianic belief in the Shiite tradition of the 12th or “hidden” Islamic savior who will emerge from a well in the holy city of Qum in Iran after global chaos, catastrophes and mass deaths and establish the era of Islamic Justice and everlasting peace.

President Ahmadinejad has refused so far to respond to proposals from the U.S., EU, Russia and China on the UN Security Council to cease Iran’s relentless quest for nuclear enrichment and weapons development program until August 22nd. Why August 22nd? Because August 22nd, coincides with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day the great Salah El-Din conquered Jerusalem.

Ahmadinejad’s extremists ideology in triggering Armageddon gives great concerns to the intelligence community.

At this point the civilized world must unite in fighting the same enemies plaguing Israel and the world with terrorism. We need to stop analyzing the enemies’ differences as Sunni-Hamas or Shiite-Hezbollah, and start understanding that their common bond in their fight against us is radical Islam.

 

ARITHMETIC OF PAIN

Arithmetic of pain
By Alan M. Dershowitz
The Wall Street Journal
July 19, 2006

There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop the attacks. The big question raised by Israel’s military actions in Lebanon is what is “reasonable.” The answer, according to the laws of war, is that it is reasonable to attack military targets, so long as every effort is made to reduce civilian casualties. If the objectives cannot be achieved without some civilian casualties, these must be “proportional” to the civilian casualties that would be prevented by the military action.

This is all well and good for democratic nations that deliberately locate their military bases away from civilian population centers. Israel has its air force, nuclear facilities and large army bases in locations as remote as anything can be in that country. It is possible for an enemy to attack Israeli military targets without inflicting “collateral damage” on its civilian population. Hezbollah and Hamas, by contrast, deliberately operate military wings out of densely populated areas. They launch antipersonnel missiles with ball-bearing shrapnel, designed by Syria and Iran to maximize civilian casualties, and then hide from retaliation by living among civilians. If Israel decides not to go after them for fear of harming civilians, the terrorists win by continuing to have free rein in attacking civilians with rockets. If Israel does attack, and causes civilian casualties, the terrorists win a propaganda victory: The international community pounces on Israel for its “disproportionate” response. This chorus of condemnation actually encourages the terrorists to operate from civilian areas.

While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian casualties – not always with success – Hezbollah and Hamas want to maximize civilian casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a diplomat commented years ago, “have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain.... Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israeli casualties play in their favor.” These are groups that send children to die as suicide bombers, sometimes without the child knowing that he is being sacrificed. Two years ago, an 11-year-old was paid to take a parcel through Israeli security. Unbeknownst to him, it contained a bomb that was to be detonated remotely. (Fortunately the plot was foiled.)

This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war. The distinction between combatants and civilians – easy when combatants were uniformed members of armies that fought on battlefields distant from civilian centers – is more difficult in the present context. Now, there is a continuum of “civilianality”: Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents – babies, hostages and others completely uninvolved; at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the terrorists politically, or spiritually.

The laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these realities. An analogy to domestic criminal law is instructive: A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets. The terrorists must be held legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the civilians, even if the direct physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli citizens.

Israel must be allowed to finish the fight that Hamas and Hezbollah started, even if that means civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon. A democracy is entitled to prefer the lives of its own innocents over the lives of the civilians of an aggressor, especially if the latter group contains many who are complicit in terrorism. Israel will – and should – take every precaution to minimize civilian casualties on the other side. On July 16, Hasan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, announced there will be new “surprises,” and the Aska Martyrs Brigade said that it had developed chemical and biological weapons that could be added to its rockets. Should Israel not be allowed to pre-empt their use?

Israel left Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. These are not “occupied” territories. Yet they serve as launching pads for attacks on Israeli civilians. Occupation does not cause terrorism, then, but terrorism seems to cause occupation. If Israel is not to reoccupy to prevent terrorism, the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority must ensure that these regions cease to be terrorist safe havens.

FULL ARTICLE

EUROPE’S DISPROPORTIONATE CRITICISM

Europe’s disproportionate criticism
By Gerald M. Steinberg
The Wall Street Journal Europe
July 17, 2006

In early 2000, the European Union was an enthusiastic supporter of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the security zone in southern Lebanon. Paris was about to take over the EU presidency in July and played a dominant role in the discussions. The French foreign and defense ministers pressed Israel to return its military forces to the international border. In detailed talks that took place at the French ambassador’s residence in Jaffa, in which I participated as an academic consultant, the Europeans assured us that once Israel retreated, Hezbollah would lose its raison d’etre as a “militia” and transform itself into a political party. France and its partners would send peacekeepers to prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah.

In May that year, the Israeli military left Lebanon. The United Nations certified that the withdrawal was complete. But Europe did nothing. Hezbollah’s leaders celebrated a great “military victory,” and Iranian “advisers” provided intelligence, training and thousands more of missiles, some with ranges of 75 kilometers and more that could penetrate deep into Israeli territory and for the first time hit Haifa, Israel’s third biggest city.

Instead of the promised transformation, Hezbollah took positions right across Israel’s border and prepared for the next round of the war. Fearing international and particularly European condemnation, Israel did nothing to prevent this dangerous buildup. Emboldened by Israeli restraint, Hezbollah staged the first cross-border attack and kidnapping only five months after Israel’s withdrawal, in October 2000.

Europe’s reaction back then was limited to repeating the usual mantras, calling on Israel to “act with restraint” and to “give diplomacy a chance.”

Now, after steady escalation and attrition to which Israel is particularly vulnerable, Hezbollah triggered a full-scale confrontation by firing another round of missiles at Israeli cities and staging a kidnapping attack, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed. In tandem with Palestinian assaults from Hamas-controlled Gaza, which also featured missiles and kidnapped soldiers to be traded for terrorists, this opened a two-front war.

This time, though, Israel moved quickly to finally dismantle the strategic threat in Lebanon. No state can simply stand by while its citizens are being killed and abducted, its cities routinely shelled, and part of its population forced to live in fear and sleep in bomb shelters. Hezbollah erroneously thought its missiles and the support from Iran and Syria would allow it to continue attacking Israel with impunity.

Europe’s role, once again, is limited to repeating the same old tired phrases. The EU called Israel’s response and attacks on Beirut and in Gaza “disproportionate” and violations of international law. France in particular was outraged. “For several hours, there has been a bombardment of an airport of an entirely sovereign country, a friend of France... this is a disproportionate act of war,” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. It may have escaped the minister that the initial act of war originated from Lebanon and that the target of this unprovoked aggression is supposedly also a “sovereign country” and “friend of France.”

The knee-jerk condemnation of their country was not lost on Israelis who recall the broken promises from 2000 and the visceral antipathy toward them when they had to fight Arafat’s terror war. Beyond the rhetoric, European officials offer no framework for a proper and “proportionate” level of force in response to mass terror aimed at the ultimate goal of “wiping Israel off the map.”

Few in Europe probably realize that the EU’s failure to act in response to Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, and the three years that were wasted in negotiations while Iran began enriching uranium, only strengthened Israel’s decision to act forcefully against the terror threats posed by Hezbollah and Hamas, who act as Tehran’s proxies.

Israel’s strategy is twofold. The immediate goal is to remove Hezbollah’s acute threat by crippling its military capabilities and driving their troops from the border zone. Attacks on Lebanese infrastructure are designed to prevent the resupply of Hezbollah and to pressure the Lebanese government to establish full sovereignty over the country. It is Lebanon, not Israel, that is in violation of international law as Beirut still has not implemented U.N. resolution 1559, which demands that Hezbollah be disarmed.

At the same time, and this is Israel’s medium-term goal, going forcefully after Iran’s prodigy in Lebanon sends a powerful message to Tehran. It restores Israel’s deterrence capability, a crucial move in preventing future confrontations with Iran on a much larger scale. But many idealistic European policy makers cannot see that a small war stopped prematurely now may only pave the way for a much larger war later. In order to understand Israel’s military actions, it is imperative to consider the two powers standing behind Hezbollah. The larger strategic threat to Israel is the Damascus-Tehran axis. To view Israel’s actions in Beirut and Gaza as “disproportionate” means ignoring the radical Islamic regime in Tehran, which threatens to destroy Israel and is bent on acquiring the weapons to actually carry out its threat.

At the same time, Europe – particularly France – has invested heavily in the reconstruction of Lebanon and the international isolation of the Syrian regime. From this perspective, the damage to Beirut’s airport and infrastructure and the strain on the Lebanese government are justifiably worrying.

But if European leaders are serious about preventing instability and promoting their own economic and security interests, they will also have to share the costs of containing terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. To help resolve the immediate crisis and prevent further damage to Lebanon’s fragile economic and political structure, Europe’s leaders can stiffen Beirut’s backbone by conditioning aid to the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Cease-fire initiatives must lead to Hezbollah’s disarmament. By tying further economic assistance to an end to terror attacks, Europe can actually help create the basis for long-term stability. And of course, it must pressure Tehran and Damascus. Instead of reflexively labeling Israel’s belated use of force as “disproportionate,” the leaders of the EU must learn to make their own security policies proportionate and realistic.