Category Archives: Terrorism

Lebanon & The Partisan Punditocracy

Once again, American pundits have fallen into camps on the matter of Israel’s leveling of Lebanon. With few exceptions (mostly in the silenced libertarian camp), the issues remain unexamined; everyone is a hack, rooting for a party to the conflict, and ignoring the principles being sacrificed in the process.

The “argument” I most detest—a holdover from that theater of triumphs, Iraq—is the false dichotomy set-up: “What would you have done in Israel’s position?” the custodians of intellectual debate ask plaintively (and deceptively).

How about not destroy an entire (rather modern and open) society, for starters?

Facetiousness aside, whereas in the US it has taken a couple of years for media malpractitioners to catch up with libertarian prescients vis-Ã -vis Iraq, Israelis are already saying exactly what I said in “Call Off the Israeli Air Force!“: precise, limited and delimited, ongoing strikes.

Writes Yoel Marcus in Ha’aretz, “Israel was right to launch Operation Change of Direction. The big mistake was in not limiting it to a reprisal raid with a time frame and specific dimensions.” A far cry from the crazed recommendations the “sofa samurais” in the US have been issuing.

As I’ve said, develop a different kind of warfare. Big, bloated armies of conscripts are no match for lean mean voluntary militia. Also fascinating about the robustness of debate in Israel is this: I wishfully wrote that the Israeli Air Force ought to have refused when it “was told to carry out air raids on Lebanese roads and residential real estate.” And sure enough, some magnificent men have shown such independent-minded judgment. Read about it in this Observer article, “Israeli Pilots Deliberately Miss Targets.”

Commentators often evince an astute ideological understanding of the conflict—one I may even share. But the notion, for instance, that Hezbollah is a Jihadist organization that would like to see Israel destroyed does nothing to address whether there is utility or justification in destroying Lebanon. (And by that I imply the need to use western precepts such as Just-War ethics and reason. We are fighting for the West, aren’t we? Or is that just a hollow slogan!?)

From believing Hezbollah is spearheading jihad, it does not follow that one ought to pummel Lebanon and kill many more innocents than guilty. Hezbollah, moreover, represents a small segment of the Lebanese population and government, contrary to the Palestinian Authority, where the jihad agenda is widely shared on the street and by the state apparatus.

The gains from the Israeli assault have been minute and probably temporary, as is evident from the steady stream of Hezbollah-powered rockets (140 just today) launched into Northern Israel. To claim Israel is effectively dealing with the guilty in Lebanon is pie-in-the-sky.

Again, it’s interesting that quite a few military men in Israel as opposed the armchair ideologues abroad, agree with the above propositions. In Israel’s defense, and in deference to that country’s people, the debate over this war there is already in full swing.

Here in the US, it’s still safer to shut up about the “miracle” in Mesopotamia and the Leader who led us there, Peace Be Upon Him.

This Time, Israel is Dead Wrong

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism, War

I’m a Zionist and proud. Look no further than the arguments I’ve advanced in defense of a beleaguered Israel over the years.

I believe Israel has a right to the land it bought from willing Arabs (Turks and locals) using private funds. Jews established a majority in a sliver of Israel they purchased fair and square. Upon that majority, a young UN conferred statehood, recognizing the Jewish people’s natural right to have non-coercively purchased land from those willing to sell it, and resettle a territory that had been barren. The Jewish State enshrined minority rights in its Declaration of Independence and in its laws and institutions.

Many impoverished idealistic Jews died warding off Arab attackers and draining swamps. The idea that prior to the Jewish state Muslims and Jews lived in harmony is a humbug. Defenseless pacifist Jews have always been victims of periodic Muslim onslaught. When Muhammad’s muse moved them, the indigenous (often nomadic) Arabs would pounce. The massacres of 1920, 1921, and 1929 are examples:

The targets were not Zionists who had dispossessed Arabs of their lands, but for the most part Jewish communities of the ‘old Yishuv,’ communities that had lived in Palestine for many hundreds of years. The pogroms were of the same general character as pogroms that had taken place sporadically in Palestine for hundreds of years, usually referred to euphemistically by Jews of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron as ‘Meoraot’—’events.’ The worst massacres took place in Safed, Hebron, Jerusalem and Motza. Like the pogroms of past ages, these ‘disturbances’ featured angry crowds stirred up over a religious or other dispute, Imams preaching ‘Kill the Jews wherever you find them,’ and mobs screaming ‘Aleihum’ (get them) and ‘Itbach Al Yahood’—murder the Jews. In a few days, over a hundred Jews were murdered and several hundreds were wounded. [That’s in 1929.]

While there were indeed injustices against the local population after the Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948, these were sporadic, not systematic. The charge of planned ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is bogus.

I hold that the “society” that sends suicide bombers into Israel proper is a savage and atrophying one—not because of Israel or America, but because of its own values and sources of inspirations. Ditto that state-within-a-state, Hezbollah.

I am fully aware of the staged set-ups in the war in Lebanon. The Jenin “massacre” fable and the Mohammed Al-Dura case are among the more notorious hoaxes perpetrated by propagandizing Arabs on the West.

However, the hoaxes do not explain away a devastated Lebanon—destruction so wanton it must turn the stomach of any honest human being.

The ongoing frauds, long an arrow in the Arab quiver, do not resurrect the 900 Lebanese dead, nor restore close to one million homeless to their obliterated homes.

You can discount what the hard-left, the far-right, and the far-gone libertarians say about Israel, if you like. Because their positions are intransigent—Israel evil; Arabs good—they can be said to evince ingrained bias.

But given my long-standing pro-Israel position, you cannot discard my stance.

And it is this: It is impossible to finesse Israel’s wrongs. The Israeli Air Force’s shock-and-awe has been barbaric. Instead of starting with precision, “deep-penetration” operations, Israel began with brute force, turning Lebanon into a parking lot and its inhabitants into homeless people.

I repeat what I said two weeks back, “Hezbollah (and Hamas) target civilians and hide among them. Although necessary, this fact, however, is not sufficient to exempt Israel from responsibility for its direct actions. For those, Israel can’t shirk accountability. It can’t claim it didn’t intend to take out civilians when Israeli generals can both see and foresee the devastating results of their bombardments.”

Any principled human being devoted to justice and freedom has to be repulsed by what Israel has done and is busy doing.

Israeli Kids are Just Like Palestinian Kids—NOT

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Moral relativists desire nothing more than to equate with impunity the rather civilized and way-too-liberal Israeli society with the savage society adjacent to it. Well, to be fair to these equivocators, moral relativism is the least of their problems; outright immorality is. Their general impetus is to delegitimize Israel in any way possible (of course, as I’ve pointed out, Israel may be helping in the effort.) And if this involves ditching the powers of analogy, so be it.

Enemies of Everything Israel sprung into action, concluding that this image is no different to these:

The first is a photo of Israeli little girls from Kiryat Shmona, on the border with Lebanon and subject to many terrorist assaults over the years. The worst was a massacre in which nine children were slaughtered (a family friend—a pathologist—performed the autopsies).

The girls emerged from the shelters after five days of shelling to find their small town crawling with the military and the press, foreign and local. According to Lisa Goldman, one of the parents addressed a tank shell with the words, “To Nasrallah with love.” The kids decorated it with Israeli flags.

Is there anything wrong with this picture? Not to my mind. Nasrallah is a very bad man indeed. I’d gladly add my signature.

The other photos are a slideshow starring future little suicide bombers, dressed in fatigues, carrying arms, or strapped with Toys “R” Us suicide belts, screaming “Itbuch El Yahud”—death to the Jews. This is clearly a communal educational effort, as the tykes are surrounded by immediate and extended family, grandmothers too.

These delightful folks and their progeny are not inveighing against Sharon, Olmert, or the IDF, but against—the Jews. They are dressed to kill.

Contrast that with the little girls in their dainty frocks. They addressed the shell to a man who wants to do them harm, not to the Lebanese people or to all Arabs. Theirs was an act of patriotism. Is it so evil, in this liberal, emasculated, deracinated world to identify with your defenders and hope they win? Apparently so.

And consider this: how likely is it that those girls, now being indirectly maligned, will grow up to be suicide bombers? Yes, you get my drift.

The girls, moreover, do not have the deductive powers to reason that the shell may harm innocents. This is more than can be said for the idiots who equate them with Tots for Terrorism.

The same creeps also disguise their disingenuous unwillingness to draw objective distinctions with simpering, broad-brush generalities: “woe betides me, for all these kids—Jews and Arabs—are victims…”

Repulsive indeed.

BAB Letter of the Week: Lebanese Must Choose

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Terrorism, The Military

As I said, “Letter of the Week” is a feature I’ll endeavor to keep up on Barely a Blog. In response to “Israel Risks Squandering Moral High Ground,” John McClain, a retired Marine who served in Lebanon from 1982 to 1983, shares his insights. I don’t necessarily agree with his argument, mainly because he equates the collective with the individual. (“Facing the Onslaught of Jihad,” while a little dated, discusses some of the issues invloved.) However, his reasoning is realistic—we operate within the confines of the nation-state. He was, moreover, right THERE in the thick of things:

Dear Ms. Mercer,

As a retired Marine who spent from August of 82 through early spring 83 in Beirut, I have a personal connection with what is taking everyone’s attention at this particular moment. I was there when the IDF was there, and when U.S. forces interceded to keep the IDF from confronting the Syrian Army in southern Lebanon. I got to know many Lebanese people, the ordinary workers at the Airport for the most part, and both Muslim and Christian Lebanese were apparently grateful for our intervention.
As you point out, Israel withdrew in full accordance with the U.N. demands, and left Lebanon up to their own defenses. The U.N. did absolutely nothing to enforce any other aspect of its resolution and denigrated all those who disdained their obvious bias.
Now that Israel has been forced to go back, there is no such thing as “losing the moral high ground” when it comes to defending your own Nation. This right of self-defense is an extension of what we consider a “natural right of self-defense.” As a person, and under actual attack, there are no reasonable limits in one’s acts of tactics used for survival.
The issue with Lebanese civilians is entirely the fault of the Lebanese people themselves. They have chosen to make Hezbollah part of their nation, and when that part of their chosen nation attacks another sovereign nation, the attacking faction represents Lebanon, so the onus of “cause” falls on their own shoulders.
The defense minister of Lebanon has said that if Israel launches a ground offensive, he will have no choice but to oppose the IDF with the Lebanese Army. Why is it that the Lebanese Army has the capacity to confront the world’s most experienced modern military force—one that no one has defeated—yet they cannot disarm terrorists who are their own citizens? The two things cannot co-exist, either they have the forces to defend their nation, and therefore are fully responsible for what their people do, or they can’t confront their own enemy, and under such circumstances, they must accept the incursions by Israel as legitimate defense not only of Israel, but of the free and democratic people of Lebanon. If the Lebanese people don’t see it this way, then they have openly declared their support for Hezbollah, and therefore must accept what ever befalls their nation as the results of their own actions or inactions.
The greatest lesson my mother ever taught was one that caught me harshly every time. She raised us with the full understanding that we were responsible for our own actions regardless of outside influences. The lesson was: “not to decide is to decide,” and it completely encompasses this issue today. If the Lebanese people wish to be counted as part of the civilized world, then they cannot accept terrorist groups as part of their legitimate government. If they choose to keep Hezbollah as a legitimate part of their government, then they must accept that the enemy of Hezbollah is their enemy also, and they must be prepared for the response of their enemy to the actions of their Hezbollah compatriots. When I was walking the streets of Beirut, I believed the people who seemed happy for our intervention. All the good intents are of no value if they are not supported by action, and the Lebanese people have long accepted the notion that a substantial part of their citizens are terrorists and wish to see Israel gone. Just as the United States cannot distance itsself from what the U.S. Army does [and Israelis from what their army does.–ILANA], neither can the Lebanese disassociate themselves from what their fellow citizens do in the name of Lebanon. I can have no pity for anyone who will not fight for their own freedom, and the people of Lebanon have had ample opportunity to choose sides. They apparently have, and they will reap the whirlwind.

Sincerely,
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.