Announcements

I've set up a multi-author social blog to be used by my part-time blogger friends who don't want one of their own. Send me a note if you'd like to be able to write on For Consideration

Monday, July 31, 2006

Join me in condemning Hezbollah as well

We on the left have not hesitated during this war between Israel and Hezbollah to condemn Israel, and justifiably so to a large extent, for waging its war in a way that has a high civilian, thus innocent, death toll. But we also need to fill our credibility gap. Hezbollah's strategy is to fire rockets into Israel indiscriminately...they only have a vague idea where those rockets will land. Their targets with these missiles is the civilian population of Northern Israel; and unlike Israel, they've not warned civilians to leave the area.
It seems to me that Hezbollah's goal is to fire rockets from high-density civilian areas in the hopes (that's right, I said hopes, thus goal) that Israel will immediately retaliate by firing a rocket there, killing plenty of civilians. The more civilians that Hezbollah can entice Israel into killing, the more outrage from Arab and non-Arab nations alike will be heaped upon Israel. But in particular they want outrage from the Arab people. It's a recruiting tool in its effort to at some point trigger a war with Arab nations on one side and Israel on the other because they do not want Israel to exist.
It is a despicable way to wage war. Not only are they hiding behind civilians, their goal is to kill civilians...kill civilians in Israel with missiles that will result in Israel firing rockets at them, which will kill Lebanese civilians. And it's working wonderfully, from a propaganda standpoint and from a purely goal-oriented strategery standpoint.
I confess I have no answers. But let me ask you this: If there was a large terrorist group in Windsor, Ontario, Canada with sympathies among a large portion of the Windsor population, and if that group deployed the Hezbollah strategy and fired inaccurate missiles into Detroit, Michigan, USA, would we feel exactly the same way about the resultant civilian death toll in Windsor from our retaliation as we feel about Israel's?
Just once I'd like to see a television interview or read a newspaper interview where a Shia civilian in Lebanon condemned the actions of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is much more to blame for these civilian deaths than Israel. So while I will continue to point out the folly of Israel's strategy or lack thereof, it's high time we emphasize where most of the fault lies.

On the flipside, it would be nice to hear the right say the things we on the left have been saying from the beginning...that Israel is falling into a centuries' old trap; that the war cannot be won this way; that for every Hezbollah killed, for every Lebanese civilian killed they're creating multitudes and generations of Hezbollahs.

4 comments:

David said...

It would be refreshing to read about Israel not taking the bait, but I can see where Israel feels it has no other choice.

I Windsor launnched rockets at Detroit to kill innocent civilians, the public out cry for retaliation would be the same. If we as a nation did not respond, the public outcry would be deafening.

As Israel's PM put it yesterday, Israel considers each civilian death in Lebanon a terrible tragedy and mourns each one. Each Jewish civilian death in Israel is considered by Hezbollah as a victory to be celebrated.

How do you show restraint against an enemy when that is their mindset?

Brent said...

If you are going to fight, you must win against an organization like Hezbollah. It seems like the Israeli goal is to fight, but not to destroy the organization within Lebanon. There will be no winner in this conflict. Both sides must take blame for this conflict. Pity, as I was hoping that Israel could make a difference in the war on Terrorism.

El Mas Chingón said...

What Hezbollah is doing is despicable but it's effective. Israel took the bait and now they're in the same mess we're in over in Iraq. Both sides are wrong in this dispute.

Ingrid said...

Today I found something about Hezbollah that was written by a Dutch Lebanese blogger in Beirut. I would have to translate it but I will...there are bits of truth in everything, but again, Israel is so used to being able to just do what it wants to do, that there is no need for wise alternatives to disable Hezbollah..
Ingrid