August 23, 2006 | Articles/Op-Eds

Hezbollah Emboldened By American-Backed U.N. Cease-Fire

This column originally appeared in The Philadelphia Bulletin on August 23, 2006. You can read the article on The Bulletin’s website.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah lasted just 32 days, and over that course of time Israeli forces struck at the heart of Hezbollah throughout southern Lebanon, increasing the scope of the war into the north only days before the current cease-fire took effect and Israeli troops were forced to withdraw.

One must question the sense, though, in the current cease-fire which took effect Monday, Aug. 14. Is it in the best interest of Israel as a free state with a right to self-determination? Is it really in the best interest of the Lebanese people, who have undoubtedly suffered from the recent conflict, but whose historically Christian culture has suffered much more greatly at the hands of Hezbollah over the course of its rise to power in that country?

While the current break in fighting has succeeded in bringing an end to most open fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the peace accomplished is as fragile as it is artificial. The United Nations may have brokered a truce between Israel and radical Muslim fighters in the form of Hezbollah, but the war will continue, regardless. It would be surprising if this resolution turns out to be of a permanent nature.

Hezbollah, the most accurate English translation of which is “Hezb’allah,” literally means “the party of God.” Founded in the mid-1980s, Hezbollah’s main goals were to oppose the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and to spread the Shi’a revolution as heralded by Ayatollah Khomeini, the radical Muslim cleric whom President Carter allowed to overthrow Mohammad Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.

In allowing the Shah to fall in 1979, President Carter and the West watched as Khomeini replaced one of their greatest allies for modern reform. Khomeini, himself a preeminent cleric, quickly established Iran as an Islamic theocracy and inspired the radicalization of much of the Muslim faith as it exists today. Hezbollah is one of the standout black fruits of that radical fundamentalism.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, the political and ideological leader for Hezbollah and prominent in the recent war against Israel, has had this to say of Israel: “It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth.” Nasrallah has also said that, “there is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.”

He has claimed that Hezbollah reacts to Israel only in defensive ways and that the Katyusha rockets that famously rained down on Israel, killing many, were originally acquired only to deter attacks on Lebanon. Remember that the most recent conflict began as a result of an incursion by Hezbollah fighters into Israel, whereby two Israeli Defense soldiers were taken prisoner and three murdered.

Much of the West remains blind or pig-headed in its unwillingness to accept the very real threat that groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestinian territory, and al-Qaida globally, present to the free world at large and Israel specifically as the last great vestige of liberty shining in the heart of the Middle East.

Coexistence is not possible so long as Islamofacism remains the dominant ideological and political reality among the powerful Shi’a throughout the Middle East and beyond. Fundamentalist Islam watches and takes note as the free peoples of the West capitulate in one instance after another. It shakes our hands with its right while holding the knife by which it will slay us in its left.

With the recent U.N. ceasefire, we have saved Hezbollah from destruction as a military force, while at the same time emboldening them, as they believe they were the true victors in the recent conflict with Israel. Really, who can dispute their contention of a moral victory?

Hezbollah, responsible for invading Israel, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking prisoner two, and bombing civilian targets resulting in the deaths of dozens of Israelis, has been lent moral equivalence by the United Nations. Hezbollah is greatly strengthened by the current ceasefire.

This is the quiet before a storm that is bound to rage again, and in the quiet, Hezbollah’s capabilities can be repaired, their militia rebuilt and their arsenal restocked by their allies, Iran and Syria, who themselves present threats of a catastrophic proportions that we continue to wish away. If only it was so easy.

Meanwhile, the cease-fire remains in place, but to neither party’s interest. For Israel, the continued existence and threat presented by Hezbollah’s military wing means that their objective remains unfulfilled. For Hezbollah, the continued existence and imagined threat presented merely by the Jewish presence in the Middle East means that their objective of genocide, too, remains unaccomplished. Can we really deceive ourselves into believing that this peace is a lasting, or even meaningful, one?

President Reagan said that “history teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” For Hezbollah and its sponsors, the price of aggression is marvelously cheap. Supplying rockets and fueling state-sponsored propaganda messages costs millions, but for Iran, one of the world’s top suppliers of oil, the price is next to nothing if the result is the chipping away at the mantle of freedom that is Israel.

Whether through gradual spurts of war or by future nuclear means, the reality is that Iran is prepared to effect the destruction of what it labels the “Zionist state”, Israel, whether directly or through its proxies.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration seem to have suffered historical amnesia midway through the Israeli war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The administration shifted its policy from supporting Israel’s right to self-defense to, essentially, the idea that peace at any cost is the ultimate objective.

In brokering this cease-fire, we will have only ourselves to blame when fresh fighting breaks out in the Middle East between Israel and better equipped, battle hardened Hezbollah guerillas. The New York Times reported last week that Hezbollah is already moving throughout Lebanon to offer civilians rebuilding support through its social service network, much of which is grassroots.

With the U.N. hoping to have a meager 3500 troops in Lebanon within two weeks, at best, with the rest of the 15,000 contingent to arrive within a full year, Hezbollah will have more than enough time to move throughout Lebanon as it wishes.

It will capitalize on its already rising support among the Lebanese people, thanks in great part to the lack of Western or even much Middle Eastern aide. Iran, however, being the one notable exception, as it has extended to Hezbollah an “unlimited budget” for rebuilding Lebanon according to Nehme Tohme, a member of the Lebanese Parliament who cited a conversation with an unnamed Hezbollah official.

America and the United Nations have emboldened and abetted Hezbollah, Iran and Syria with the peace that we’ve foisted onto the region. For decades now the free nations of the world have suffered terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals, whether the attackers be Black September, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Iran, or Saddam Hussein.

We cannot bury our heads in the sand forever as our values are degraded and our freedoms destroyed, else we should pull our heads out one day, puzzled by the dark and shocking world transformed around us, wondering when it all happened.