Five soldiers from the elite Sayeret Egoz were killed recently z"l. A dozen soldiers were injured in fighting today. To the best of my knowledge, there are units from all infantry brigades operating on the border or within Lebanon. The active duty parts of each infantry unit have been moved to the North, while the reserve portions are taking over duties in the West Bank. However, the massing of infantry is reaching such a scale now that many reservists will also be sent to Lebanon. So far, the fighting has claimed almost 40 Israeli lives, soldiers and civilians. While I am sure that my readers can read all these facts on their own, I need to make it a point to recognize the physical loss my people are suffering.
The current IDF strategy is a mixture of bombing infrastructure, with the attendant collateral damage, and of attacking Hizbollah positions with tanks and infantry. Sadly, Hizbollah has had 6 years of total quiet in order to build themselves up. Ever since Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, we have been in withdrawal mode. The 1990's saw Israel create the "Palestinian Authority" in the West Bank and Gaza and to grant them large areas of complete local sovereignty. To make things worse, Israel provided the PA forces with arms in order to suppress the terror groups. Of course, there's no distinction between the PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the rest of them. The weapons gifted by Israel to the Arabs were quickly turned on Israel herself. Terror attacks pressured the Israeli government to give up more and more land. In 2000, in the zenith of "land-for-peace", Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon, to the joy of leftists everywhere.
Soon after that withdrawal in May of 2000, Arafat gave the order for the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which began promptly in September of that year. Three years of bloodshed followed, until Israel hit the Arabs with great force and closed off the West Bank and Gaza. However, terror continued, albeit on a smaller scale, and Israel gradually succumbed to international pressure to give up on all of Gaza and to evacuate the 8,000 Jews who lived there. While many perceived this as a great way to jettison a troublesome area, people with a brain knew that the disengagement from Gaza would embolden our enemies. Indeed, after Israel withdrew from 100% of Gaza in August 2005, the Arabs there commenced firing Kassam rockets into Israel proper, ruining the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. Since the communities affected were small and not politically influential, and since Israel didn't want to appear unnecessarily belligerent, our government did nothing. The government also did nothing while Hizbollah strengthened itself with Syrian and Iranian help, right in front of they eyes of IDF troops on the northern border.
After a fake sense of relative calm, Hizbollah, which has publically admitted to fully coordinating its operations with Hamas, struck Israel in the North. Israel now finds itself fighting a mediocre force in Gaza and a large, well-equipped and well-prepared force along the Lebanese border. How this was not predicted by the brilliant left-wingers who run our government, I cannot say. Their desire to please the international community in general and the Europeans in particular was so powerful, that they completely forgot that their primary job isn't to make a French businessman feel confident enough to sign a contract with an Israeli firm, but rather to make sure Israeli civilians aren't getting shelled by enemy forces.
Luckily, part of the ruling elite has been awakened from their brief embrace with the anti-semites who run most Western countries, and has realized that no one could care less if Israel pleases or doesn't please the UN, and that the world is perfectly content to grant Hizbollah at least as much legitimacy in action as the IDF. In such a case, why waste diplomatic resources and precious time with useless discussions? No cease-fire is needed, no half-effective solution should be called for. No exchange of hundreds of terrorists for soldiers who are most likely killed should be arranged. Israel needs to assert its sovereign right to demolish anyone who attacks its civilians on their national soil. If this means setting Lebanon back a few decades economically, so be it. After all, the Lebanese government has a duty under basic international law to be in full control of all military forces on its soil, and not to allow an army supported by foreign governments to operate freely in its southern regions. The Lebanese chose a shaky agreement with Nasrallah instead of fighting him. To think that they actually believed that he would sit quitely and not cause a major conflict with Israel is naive. The Lebanese government, as any other government in the region knows what Hizbollah's goals are, and that they will stop at nothing to achieve them. Periods of quiet are only an opportunity for Hizbollah to prepare for the next outbreak of war.
The average Lebanese resident, especially if he's a Christian or a Druze, has no desire to suffer the consequences of Hizbollah's war with Israel. But, if they choose to live in Lebanon, they should be combatting Hizbollah. Instead, they preferred an illusion of calm, and are now supposed to sit back and watch Israel bleed as it takes on an enemy that the Lebanese should have be fighting on their own? Lebanon needs to take responsibility for having a rogue army in their country, and needs to side with Israel in this war, instead of trying to suck up to the Europeans with requests for aid, and trying to suck up to the Arab world by pretending to be the victims of Israeli aggression. The sob stories of innocent Arabs who happen to have terrorists living next to them and amongst them have to end. No normal country would allow such a situation to occur. All violent force has to be under the monopoly of a single central authority that has full responsibility for using it. Terrorist organizations undermine this idea, and Arab regimes, if they want to ever be perceived by Israel and the world at large as at least somewhat normal, need to suppress any and all tendencies within their countries for terrorist organizations. Regimes that themselves are nurturing terror groups, such as Syria and Iran, of course need to be wiped out.
With regard to Syria and Iran, I hope that Israel strikes Syria as soon as possible, disabling infrastructure and crippling its military. This will significantly decrease the financial and logistical support that Hizbollah relies upon. The Iranian regime also needs to be struck, specifically its key infrastructure and military installations. Hizbollah will thus find itself isolated and under-supplied. Hopefully the dismemberment of the Syrian and Iranian regimes will lead to internal revolutions and upheavals in those nations. Let them fight it out, on religious or ethnic grounds. Israel and the US can then support with arms shipments whichever side is likely to be least of a threat if it were to claim power. If it so happens that Iran, which is composed of several large ethnic groups, splits into multiple countries, then so be it. Stability is a silly concept that has been used by left-wingers in the West to allow corrupt and violent regimes to remain in power. Stability is not an inherently desirable goal. Until this concept seeps into the thick skulls of Westerners, the Islamists will continue to cause problems well into the future.
The current IDF strategy is a mixture of bombing infrastructure, with the attendant collateral damage, and of attacking Hizbollah positions with tanks and infantry. Sadly, Hizbollah has had 6 years of total quiet in order to build themselves up. Ever since Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, we have been in withdrawal mode. The 1990's saw Israel create the "Palestinian Authority" in the West Bank and Gaza and to grant them large areas of complete local sovereignty. To make things worse, Israel provided the PA forces with arms in order to suppress the terror groups. Of course, there's no distinction between the PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the rest of them. The weapons gifted by Israel to the Arabs were quickly turned on Israel herself. Terror attacks pressured the Israeli government to give up more and more land. In 2000, in the zenith of "land-for-peace", Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon, to the joy of leftists everywhere.
Soon after that withdrawal in May of 2000, Arafat gave the order for the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which began promptly in September of that year. Three years of bloodshed followed, until Israel hit the Arabs with great force and closed off the West Bank and Gaza. However, terror continued, albeit on a smaller scale, and Israel gradually succumbed to international pressure to give up on all of Gaza and to evacuate the 8,000 Jews who lived there. While many perceived this as a great way to jettison a troublesome area, people with a brain knew that the disengagement from Gaza would embolden our enemies. Indeed, after Israel withdrew from 100% of Gaza in August 2005, the Arabs there commenced firing Kassam rockets into Israel proper, ruining the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. Since the communities affected were small and not politically influential, and since Israel didn't want to appear unnecessarily belligerent, our government did nothing. The government also did nothing while Hizbollah strengthened itself with Syrian and Iranian help, right in front of they eyes of IDF troops on the northern border.
After a fake sense of relative calm, Hizbollah, which has publically admitted to fully coordinating its operations with Hamas, struck Israel in the North. Israel now finds itself fighting a mediocre force in Gaza and a large, well-equipped and well-prepared force along the Lebanese border. How this was not predicted by the brilliant left-wingers who run our government, I cannot say. Their desire to please the international community in general and the Europeans in particular was so powerful, that they completely forgot that their primary job isn't to make a French businessman feel confident enough to sign a contract with an Israeli firm, but rather to make sure Israeli civilians aren't getting shelled by enemy forces.
Luckily, part of the ruling elite has been awakened from their brief embrace with the anti-semites who run most Western countries, and has realized that no one could care less if Israel pleases or doesn't please the UN, and that the world is perfectly content to grant Hizbollah at least as much legitimacy in action as the IDF. In such a case, why waste diplomatic resources and precious time with useless discussions? No cease-fire is needed, no half-effective solution should be called for. No exchange of hundreds of terrorists for soldiers who are most likely killed should be arranged. Israel needs to assert its sovereign right to demolish anyone who attacks its civilians on their national soil. If this means setting Lebanon back a few decades economically, so be it. After all, the Lebanese government has a duty under basic international law to be in full control of all military forces on its soil, and not to allow an army supported by foreign governments to operate freely in its southern regions. The Lebanese chose a shaky agreement with Nasrallah instead of fighting him. To think that they actually believed that he would sit quitely and not cause a major conflict with Israel is naive. The Lebanese government, as any other government in the region knows what Hizbollah's goals are, and that they will stop at nothing to achieve them. Periods of quiet are only an opportunity for Hizbollah to prepare for the next outbreak of war.
The average Lebanese resident, especially if he's a Christian or a Druze, has no desire to suffer the consequences of Hizbollah's war with Israel. But, if they choose to live in Lebanon, they should be combatting Hizbollah. Instead, they preferred an illusion of calm, and are now supposed to sit back and watch Israel bleed as it takes on an enemy that the Lebanese should have be fighting on their own? Lebanon needs to take responsibility for having a rogue army in their country, and needs to side with Israel in this war, instead of trying to suck up to the Europeans with requests for aid, and trying to suck up to the Arab world by pretending to be the victims of Israeli aggression. The sob stories of innocent Arabs who happen to have terrorists living next to them and amongst them have to end. No normal country would allow such a situation to occur. All violent force has to be under the monopoly of a single central authority that has full responsibility for using it. Terrorist organizations undermine this idea, and Arab regimes, if they want to ever be perceived by Israel and the world at large as at least somewhat normal, need to suppress any and all tendencies within their countries for terrorist organizations. Regimes that themselves are nurturing terror groups, such as Syria and Iran, of course need to be wiped out.
With regard to Syria and Iran, I hope that Israel strikes Syria as soon as possible, disabling infrastructure and crippling its military. This will significantly decrease the financial and logistical support that Hizbollah relies upon. The Iranian regime also needs to be struck, specifically its key infrastructure and military installations. Hizbollah will thus find itself isolated and under-supplied. Hopefully the dismemberment of the Syrian and Iranian regimes will lead to internal revolutions and upheavals in those nations. Let them fight it out, on religious or ethnic grounds. Israel and the US can then support with arms shipments whichever side is likely to be least of a threat if it were to claim power. If it so happens that Iran, which is composed of several large ethnic groups, splits into multiple countries, then so be it. Stability is a silly concept that has been used by left-wingers in the West to allow corrupt and violent regimes to remain in power. Stability is not an inherently desirable goal. Until this concept seeps into the thick skulls of Westerners, the Islamists will continue to cause problems well into the future.
posted by Felix at
2:43 AM
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