It is good to see that the London Times has resisted the knee-jerk reaction to the tragic events in Qana. Here are a couple of excerpts from an excellent editorial in today's newspaper:
There will never be peace in the region as long as Hezbollah, backed by its sponsoring regimes in Iran and Syria, is allowed to threaten Israel militarily. A ceasefire that left Hezbollah claiming victory on the battlefield would hugely strengthen its fighters as well as those of Hamas, draining authority from the Lebanese Government and Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, while unsettling further Western-friendly regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Defeating Hezbollah, though, would strengthen the arm of those Arab leaders who see the benefit of an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution while also curbing the regional influence of Tehran and Damascus.
There are wider reasons why the emotional impact of the past 48 hours must be placed in the right framework. The criticism that Israeli attacks aimed at Hezbollah are disproportionate is lazy and facile in several ways, especially in implying a moral relativism between the two sides that does not exist. This is not the contest between misguided equals that many in the West seem to see. One is the region’s lone democracy, which for much of its existence has faced a very real existential threat and would like, if possible, to live in peace with its neighbours. The other is a terrorist organisation, bent on preventing such a future. ...
Hezbollah is not an emancipation movement. It represents a virulent stream of extremist Islam, characterised by misogyny, homophobia, utter intolerance of difference even within its own religion and a belief system rooted many several centuries past. Whether Hezbollah intended to spark such a ferocious response from Israel is uncertain. That it has been planning this war for some time, though, is clear from its arsenal and fortifications.
News from a war zone will always be grisly, and 21st-century communications bring into the living room the human horrors of armed conflict. But these should not deflect from the clash of values and competing ideologies behind the pictures. It may reassure many in the West that such a threat seems comfortably far away. But the consequences of the current conflict stretch far beyond the region, and they have to be faced.
I also recommend that you read David Aaronovitch in today's Times. Here's an excerpt:
Today, on the website of Hezbollah’s own propaganda agency, al-Manar, you can find the boast that on one day at the end of last week: “Islamic resistance fighters launched barrages of rockets at northern Israeli settlements . . . According to Israeli media, some 20 settlers were injured in today’s attacks.” “Settlements” is Hezbollah for towns and villages, and “settlers” is Hezbollah for civilians. So when a 240lb Hezbollah rocket slammed into the Israeli countryside last week, it should have prompted the thought that when the Israelis miss their targets they hit civilians and when Hezbollah misses, they don’t.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah (thinks, how exactly did he become leader of Hezbollah?) is a prolific speaker, but is credited with meaning what he says. Nasrallah believes that the Jews “invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities”. That Israel “is a cancerous body in the region” that “must be uprooted”. More magnanimously:
“ Let us spare bloodshed. Let the Yemenite Jews return to Yemen, the Moroccan Jews to Morocco, the Ethiopian Jews to Ethiopia, the European Jews to Europe, and the American Jews to America.” Though even that is generous because: “Anyone who reads the Koran . . . sees what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history . . . Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer.”
This is the chap with the long-range missiles (getting longer range) sitting on Israel’s northern border. And while Hezbollah might bring out the Lebanese flags for the press in Beirut, in their southern fastnesses the only banners are theirs. And what do we say, knowing this? That Bad Blair should lean on Worse Bush who should put the squeeze on Murdering Olmert and it’d all be over. That’s the new orthodoxy.
Good on ya!
