Israel’s recent war with Hezbollah left the Middle East and the world less safe and derailed a Middle East peace process that had been, for once, looking more hopeful than not.
That is not to say that Israel’s goal of eliminating or incapacitating Hezbollah was unwise; it is a group founded to expel the Israelis from Lebanon. When the Israelis finally vacated all Lebanese territory in 2000, Hezbollah’s raison d’etre vanished. Its guns and Katyusha rockets did not, and with the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier that sparked the crisis, it should be realized that Hezbollah has another grievance with Israel—the fact of its existence.
It would behoove the world to remember that Hezbollah is the tool of Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has stated his desire to wipe Israel off the map. There is no compelling reason not to take him at his word, and there is no reason not to worry that the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis does not want to stop at the destruction of the ‘Zionist entity’— after all, it has always been the littler of the two Satans.
Hezbollah is a complex entity, and not all of its actions are evil. It provides a variety of necessary social services and charitable help in southern Lebanon and the south suburbs of Beirut. But it should not be confused with the government of Lebanon and the people of Lebanon as a whole. Hezbollah is a cancer on the body politic of Lebanon, and it has no place in a peaceful and democratic Lebanon unless it disarms and embraces nonviolence.
Lebanon, the bright light of the Middle East at the beginning of July 2006—a relatively liberal, open-minded, peaceful society set firmly against the Iranian-Syrian axis—saw its international airport destroyed, its ports blockaded and its civilians killed. The Israeli government’s plan was for moderate Lebanese civilians to blame Hezbollah for the Israeli rockets destroying their nation. This was as feasible as the Americans being greeted in Iraq as liberators. Lebanese who lost family members will blame those who dropped the bombs, not the organization that feeds their children.
Israel must recognize that its unique predicament cannot be solved by military means alone, Seven million Israelis are surrounded by 107 million Arabs. And although Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel, it should not be forgotten that Egypt has its own radical Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, nor that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was Jordanian.
The Arab world is overwhelmingly anti-Israel, due not only to legitimate historical grievances but also the political considerations of corrupt autocrats, who encourage rage against Israel to distract from their domestic misconduct, and the portrayal of Israel in a farcically anti-Semitic and unbalanced press. Historical grievances notwithstanding, Israeli children who have lived their entire lives in the Jewish state bear no ‘blood guilt’ and should not be expected to leave their land, no matter the sins of their forefathers. Nevertheless, Israel’s image in the Arab world must improve for Israel’s survival to be ensured.
How should Israel have responded to the kidnapping of its soldier by Hezbollah? Inaction would have appeared inept and would have been unwise. It should have given the government of Faud Sinoria more time to move against Hezbollah, and only then should it have bombed Southern Lebanon, leaving the airport, the northern Christian areas and the ports untouched. Seeing that its bombing was not destroying the military effectiveness of Hezbollah, it should have launched an earlier ground offensive.
But the past is in the past, and we must look forward now. A tenuous ceasefire holds despite a breach by the Israelis. The Lebanese army being deployed to the south is a good sign—any hold the central government can gain in the south will undermine the state-within-a-state arrangement that gives Hezbollah legitimacy. Perhaps most important is the geopolitical imperative this nasty little war has exposed: Iran, its ally Syria, and its client Hezbollah are actively engaged in seeking war against Israel. We should not be too hasty to disregard the threats of genocide coming from religious fundamentalists. Not only should we not ignore them, but we should not allow them to acquire nuclear weapons. The central lesson America must take away from this bloody drama is that we have an enemy in the Middle East who is actively seeking the downfall of America and trying with all his might to acquire nuclear weapons for his country. Guess what? It’s not Saddam.
