Israel/Hezbollah/Lebanon (1 cent)

It is hard to judge whether Israel's destruction of so much of the Lebanese infrastructure is necessary. From here, obviously, it seems excessive.

But we are here, not there.

Israel, after mishandling its occupation of the territories captured in 1967 so badly, withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, and from Gaza several months ago. Within Israel, there are those who said that this was a terrible mistake, that it would only open the borders to attack. These Israelis turned out to be correct, aided by their allies in Hamas and Hezbollah.

Clearly not allies in the sense in which the word is normally used, but allies in the belief that peaceful relations are not possible, and that therefore attempts at peaceful relations are misguided.

On the Arab side, it started with Katyusha rockets falling on the border town of Sderot, fired by Hamas in Gaza, day after day after day. There was no Israeli response. Then, there was the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hamas and the Israelis, as they say, went ballistic.

Seeing the Israeli reaction, Hezbollah in the north decide to move into Israel and capture a few more soldiers. Another strong Israeli action, followed by missles fired into Israel by Hezbollah from Lebanon.

The Palestineans elect a Hamas majority in Parliament; Hezbollah becomes a part of the Lebanese government. Yet, when elected to membership in these coalition governments, Hamas and Hezbollah did not put their independent factions under government control, but let them continue to operate with impunity, knowing that governmental ability to rein them in would be ineffective.

So, in effect, both Lebanon and Gaza were in somewhat parallel situations, each with two parallel governments.

Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas is self sufficient, with Syria the main supporter of Hamas and Iran, operating on roads through Syria, is Hezbollah's main supplier. Gaza can be effectively cordoned off, one presumes, but Lebanon is another story. Only through destruction of the means of supply (i.e., airports and roads into Syria from Lebanon) can there be any hope of weakening Hezbollah. And, they already apparently have 13,000 rockets in the country.

Even without Israel, the middle east is unstable. The Sunnis (Hamas) and the Shiites (Hezbollah) are about as friendly to each other as are the Arabs and Israelis. There is much more death in Iraq, where Sunni-Shiite violence seems to grow daily, than there is in Lebanon. Iran and Iraq have fought major wars; Lebanon has been wracked by civil war. Iraq's coalition government could fall apart at any moment. Iran, the non-Arab country, is under Arab suspicion because it is not Arab; Iran has dreams of empire which would be heightened if they indeed develop nuclear warfare capacity. The gulf Arabs (Saudi Arabia and the gulf states) want no part of any of this. Nor does Egypt, although its population at any point could overturn the Mubarak government. And King Abdullah of Jordan is very forward thinking, but his population is more Palestinian than Jordanian.

The Israelis are not dumb. They recognize that what they are doing in Lebanon will harden Arab (and other) hearts against them, and it cannot be fun to bomb your neighbor. So, they must be convinced they are following the correct path. And the U.S., going out of its way not to call for any cessation of hostilities at this time, must agree with them. And hwo knows what could possibly be going on behind the scenes diplomatically involving who knows what countries.

If Israel had let the current provocations go unanswered, and Hamas had gained ground in Gaza, while Hezbollah continued to build up its armaments in Lebanon under the aegis of a nuclear Iran, there is no telling what could have happened. It is this nightmare that the Israelis are trying to avoid through the current, lesser nightmare.

Are the right or wrong? Who knows?

Perhaps, of course, unless your are a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. If so, you may be pleased as punch. After all, you could say, didn't God direct the Jews to develop the concept of political Zionism, so that the Arabs could develop the concept of political jihad, so that massive battles could take place as prophesied, so that the believing Christians could be raptured up on high?

Who is the man behind the current pulling the strings here? Is he an Arab, a Jew, or a ________?