Category Archives: Israel

'Hezbollah's Other War'

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Michael Young of Reason Magazine has penned an outstanding analysis of the Lebanese political landscape in the New York Times. Young is the opinion editor of The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper published in Beirut. Skip the ideologically slanted positions proffered on the blogs, left and right, in favor of this forensic breakdown:

“The great fear expressed by many Lebanese is that the country can absorb neither a Hezbollah victory against Israel nor a Hezbollah defeat. If Hezbollah merely survives as both a political and military organization, it can claim victory. The result may be the expansion of the party’s authority over the political system, thanks to its weaponry and its considerable sway over the Lebanese Army, which has a substantial Shiite base. This, in turn, might lead to a solidification of Iranian influence and the restoration of Syrian influence. A Hezbollah defeat, in turn, would be felt by Shiites as a defeat for their community in general, significantly destabilizing the system.

As one Hezbollah combatant recently told The Guardian: ‘The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let’s finish with the Israelis, and then we will settle scores later.”

This essentially repeated what Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast a week after the conflict began: ‘If we succeed in achieving the victory . . . we will never forget all those who supported us at this stage. . . . As for those who sinned against us . . . those who made mistakes, those who let us down and those who conspired against us . . . this will be left for a day to settle accounts. We might be tolerant with them, and we might not.’

Meanwhile, the country has sunk into deep depression, and countless Lebanese with the means to emigrate are thinking of doing so. The offspring of March 8 and March 14 are in the same boat, and yet still remain very much apart. The fault lines from the days of the Independence Intifada have hardened under Israel’s bombs. Given the present balance of forces, it is difficult to conceive of a resolution to the present fighting that would both satisfy the majority’s desire to disarm Hezbollah and satisfy Hezbollah’s resolve to defend Shiite gains and remain in the vanguard of the struggle against Israel. Something must give, and until the parliamentary majority and Hezbollah can reach a common vision of what Lebanon must become, the rot will set in further.”

‘Hezbollah’s Other War’

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Michael Young of Reason Magazine has penned an outstanding analysis of the Lebanese political landscape in the New York Times. Young is the opinion editor of The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper published in Beirut. Skip the ideologically slanted positions proffered on the blogs, left and right, in favor of this forensic breakdown:

“The great fear expressed by many Lebanese is that the country can absorb neither a Hezbollah victory against Israel nor a Hezbollah defeat. If Hezbollah merely survives as both a political and military organization, it can claim victory. The result may be the expansion of the party’s authority over the political system, thanks to its weaponry and its considerable sway over the Lebanese Army, which has a substantial Shiite base. This, in turn, might lead to a solidification of Iranian influence and the restoration of Syrian influence. A Hezbollah defeat, in turn, would be felt by Shiites as a defeat for their community in general, significantly destabilizing the system.

As one Hezbollah combatant recently told The Guardian: ‘The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let’s finish with the Israelis, and then we will settle scores later.”

This essentially repeated what Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast a week after the conflict began: ‘If we succeed in achieving the victory . . . we will never forget all those who supported us at this stage. . . . As for those who sinned against us . . . those who made mistakes, those who let us down and those who conspired against us . . . this will be left for a day to settle accounts. We might be tolerant with them, and we might not.’

Meanwhile, the country has sunk into deep depression, and countless Lebanese with the means to emigrate are thinking of doing so. The offspring of March 8 and March 14 are in the same boat, and yet still remain very much apart. The fault lines from the days of the Independence Intifada have hardened under Israel’s bombs. Given the present balance of forces, it is difficult to conceive of a resolution to the present fighting that would both satisfy the majority’s desire to disarm Hezbollah and satisfy Hezbollah’s resolve to defend Shiite gains and remain in the vanguard of the struggle against Israel. Something must give, and until the parliamentary majority and Hezbollah can reach a common vision of what Lebanon must become, the rot will set in further.”

New Historians' Hissie Fit

History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Propaganda, Pseudo-history

In Harvard Hucksters, I spoke about the modus operandi of the New Historians: This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: ‘We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas’), who’ve cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they’ve thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon… they misrepresent documents, resort to partial quotes, withhold evidence, make false assertions, and rewrites original documents. Such is the incompetence of these Arabists that they even neglect Arab archival material, “relying almost exclusively on Western often only secondary sources.” As Ha’aretz’s Avraham Tal puts it, they are preoccupied with the systematic invalidation of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Avi Shlaim, one of the performers in the New-Historian’s much sought-after vaudeville, juggles the facts to come up with an analysis of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon. The shtick is familiar: no mention of the eight dead and a murderous diversionary shelling of border communities by Hezbollah, but plenty of assertions about the vampiric lusts of the Jewish State’s leaders. The anatomy of hating Israel is worth reading.

New Historians’ Hissie Fit

History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Propaganda, Pseudo-history

In Harvard Hucksters, I spoke about the modus operandi of the New Historians: This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: ‘We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas’), who’ve cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they’ve thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon… they misrepresent documents, resort to partial quotes, withhold evidence, make false assertions, and rewrites original documents. Such is the incompetence of these Arabists that they even neglect Arab archival material, “relying almost exclusively on Western often only secondary sources.” As Ha’aretz’s Avraham Tal puts it, they are preoccupied with the systematic invalidation of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Avi Shlaim, one of the performers in the New-Historian’s much sought-after vaudeville, juggles the facts to come up with an analysis of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon. The shtick is familiar: no mention of the eight dead and a murderous diversionary shelling of border communities by Hezbollah, but plenty of assertions about the vampiric lusts of the Jewish State’s leaders. The anatomy of hating Israel is worth reading.