Anniston Star: Blame Israel first

Are the Anniston Star's editors suffering from short-term memory loss? In Tuesday's editorial, they wrote:

Israel’s response to the killing and kidnapping of several of its soldiers has been a massive overreaction that has targeted innocents as well as militants in Lebanon and Gaza. Scores of civilians have been killed.

The Star's editors make it sound as if the only event that provoked the Israel's "overreaction" was the "killing and kidnapping of several of its soldiers." They ignore the fact that ever since Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza last year, Hezbollah and Hamas "militants" have been regularly launching rockets and mortars against Israeli cities. The clear goal of these attacks is to terrorize residents and attract support from Islamic extremists and Jew-haters the world over.

The Star's editors also failed to state that last week's kidnappings by Hezbollah resulted from an incursion into Israeli territory that coincided with a series of rocket attacks on northern Israel from Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Lebanon.

Now, it may be that the Star simply doesn't believe that Hezbollah was the culprit in those rocket attacks. It's very difficult for me to think like a Red Star liberal, but their reasoning might go something like this:

In 2004, the U.N. passed a resolution demanding that Hezbollah disarm. We know that Hezbollah is made up of peaceful people who value diversity and respect international law; therefore, it follows that they dutifully complied with the U.N.'s wishes and buried their guns and ammo in deep in the hills of Lebanon. Since we are confident that Hezbollah has renounced its military ambitions in favor of building schools and hospitals, the only way that rockets could have been fired from Lebanese territory is if the supposedly-kidnapped Israeli soldiers paid off their "kidnappers" to tell them the location of the rockets. The Israelis then proceeded to fire the rockets back at Israel, with the foreknowledge that a war would ensue. (Jews are savvy like that, you know?)

I am being absurdly unfair to the Star's editors, but no more so than they were by selectively ignoring Israeli civilian casualties and suggesting that Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon are a "massive overreaction" to nothing more than a few random killings and kidnappings.

It's interesting that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have been more understanding of Israel's actions than has the Anniston Star. They and other Arab states recognize that the blame for the current conflict lies with Hezbollah and its Iranian backers. They also recognize that, for the moment, the Israelis are practicing the most effective form of diplomacy possible.

What is happening in Lebanon today is tragic. Could the United States and the West have done more to prevent it? Probably so. We could have insisted on the enforcement of the U.N. resolutions which demand Hezbollah's disarmament. That would have required the deployment - for an indefinite period of time - of a heavily-armed international peacekeeping/peacemaking force in southern Lebanon. But whether such a force could have succeeded, absent the cooperation of Syria and Iran, is doubtful. We could have provided more solid support (whatever that means) to Lebanon's fledgling democracy, but Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" occurred just last year; although Syria has withdrawn its troops, its Hezbollah allies play an influential role in the new government. Again, without cooperation from Syria and Iran, it has been impossible for the Lebanese government to assert its authority in the Hezbollah-controlled regions of the south.

So, we're left with what we have - a big mess. Eventually, there will be a resolution to this crisis, for better or for worse. The best result, as far as the U.S. is concerned, is a free and independent Lebanon and a secure Israel. That means that until circumstances change - either Hezbollah is defeated or its supporters in Syria and Iran have a change of heart - it is in our interest to support Israel in its effort to defend itself through all appropriate military means. If I understand the Bush administration's position correctly, that is precisely its policy.

The Anniston Star says that "the world needs a statesman sitting in the Oval Office right now." Luckily, we have one. And he's one who understands that there's more to statesmanship than simply appeasing one's adversaries.