Envy is a curious thing. Some people simply can’t stand to see others get attention, even horribly fatal attention, while they are being snubbed.
That is the only possible explanation I can conceive for Hezbollah’s deciding to emulate Hamas recently. Hamas invaded Israel, killed several soldiers, and kidnapped one. In response, Israel is incrementally destroying every shred of Hamas, ignoring offers of trading that single Israeli soldier for a thousand or so Palestinian prisoners (indicating that Hamas agrees with me — one Israeli is worth about a thousand Palestinians) and instead hitting them harder and harder — blowing up buildings, capturing or killing leaders, and in general raining chaos on the region that has inflicted so much carnage and death on Israel over the years.
Quite frankly, I don’t see just what Hamas is gaining out of this, but somehow Hezbollah must see some sort of upside, because now they’ve emulated Hamas. They have done their own invasion of Israel and in a “anything dumb you can do, I can do dumber” move, have kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. And, predictably, Israel’s is much the same — no negotiations, just more and more military action.
So now Hezbollah has brought down the wrath of the Israeli military on southern Lebanon. And the possibility of any of those prisoners being released — already nonexistent — is, somehow, even lesser now.
I see two possible explanations for this. One, as above, is that once again we are seeing affirmation of the old observation that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” and are once again demonstrating to look at all the possible courses of actions and find the single dumbest, least productive, most self-defeating option — and leap on it with both feet.
The other possibility is that there is a plan behind this, a puppet master pulling the strings and engineering events for their own purposes.
Hmm… Israel’s military might is being focused on the north and the southwest. All their attention is on Gaza and Lebanon. In fact, much of the world’s attention is on Israel and those two regions. As the conspiracy theorists like to say, cui bono? Who benefits?
Well, I note a decided decline in coverage of Iran and its nuclear ambitions and bellicose threats. And Syria, having come under Israel’s glare over the Gaza kidnapping (even to the point of buzzing Dorktator Bashar Assad’s summer home), has rather extensive ties with Hezbollah (to put it mildly), certainly would be interested in having Israel bogged down in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Let us also not forget that Iran and Syria have a defense pact.
Could this all be a part of an Iranian/Syrian plot against Israel? Get them bogged down in Gaza and Lebanon, leaving them vulnerable to a direct strike?
I think not. It’s too Machiavellian, too Karl Rovian, for these people to conceive of and arrange. But I certainly think that there is an element of opportunism here.
I honestly don’t believe that the initial kidnapping of Gilad Shalit was part of some grand conspiracy. I suspect a group of Hamas terrorists came up with that plan on their own, got some support without going into particulars, and then pulled it off. After the fact, the leadership of Hamas was faced with a dilemma: renounce the actions as rogue elements, or embrace them. They chose a middle course, doing both (hey, does anyone know where John Kerry is?), because to do the smart and right thing (give Shalit back, and THEN push for concessions from Israel after this “gesture of good faith”), they got wrapped up in their pride and arrogance.
After that, it became simple political opportunism. Israel engaging Hamas serves many people’s political interests. The Arab world gets fresh video of “Zionist oppression” and “atrocities.” The Palestinians get fresh excuses to claim eternal victimhood. Iran gets out from under the world’s microscope. Syria gets a good look at the state of the art in Isareli weapons and tactics. And so on. And so on.
Where will all this lead? I don’t know. I don’t think Israel has the means and will to sustain the low-to-moderate fighting going on in Lebanon and Gaza. I suspect they will look for a way to end it, and end it quickly — quite possibly through escalating matters until they reach a breaking point. Hamas and Hezbollah can’t withstand the level of assault they are facing now, and certainly will have to crumble if pushed even harder.
I’ve often thought that the rounds and rounds of futile “peace talks” were just postponing the inevitable, an all-out war between Israel and the terrorists and nations that seek their destruction. That delaying this decisive defeat of the anti-Israeli forces would settle the question of Israel’s existence would only make it bloodier, more expensive. This could be the beginning of that final conflict.
But I doubt it. That’d be too tidy.
Steve – “Of course I agree there there is probably not much Bush can do but ‘call for restraint’ and ‘urge peace’ and tilt a little less obviously for Israel”
Uh – actually, I don’t agree with that, and didn’t even hint at anything like that.
appears to a report that Iranians Guards fired one of the missiles into Israel. While I don’t think Israel NEEDS much more of an excuse to kick the crap out of Iran…
p.s. just went to LOTS of sites looking for updates…strangely there aren’t many. I wonder if Israel bombed the airport in Beirut to keep the freaking REPORTERS out!!! Good for them.
In my humble opinion, I do believe Israel has the ways and means to achieve a complete victory. now what form that victory will come in is the major unknown. Some have speculated the worst being use of nuclear strikes while others have speculated Israel taking out the governments of Iran and Syria. Whatever the end result, what is clear is that Israel has definitely had enough and they have abandoned diplomacy for aggression to ensure the future safety and well-being of their citizen. It seemed that they had been defensive for so long in regards to their Arab enemies that those very same enemies felt they could pretty much do whatever they wanted and the worst thing that would happen would be that Israel would bomb some small areas, destroy some homes and get back to normal. Well apparently they went beyond the breaking point and now Hamas, Hezbolah, Syria and Iran are literally and figuratively crapping in their pants. And they have absolutely NO idea of how to react. Frankly it might come down to complete surrender of Israel’s enemies (in this case Hamas, Hezbolah, Iran and Syria) as the sole solution to bring peace back to that region.
Carl, the clamoring for big bad Israel to cease and desist is going to get louder and louder over the next couple days. I just think all the explosions are going to make the Israelis a little hard of hearing!
I wonder what the driving time to Damascus IS??
Not long in an F-16.
Carl, I don’t think Hezbollah is crapping in their pants. It is in their strategic interest to maintain a state of war and escalate fighting.
If Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah, they would go after their financiers in Syria and Iran. Bombing airports and other infrastructure in Lebanon doesn’t accomplish much in my estimation unless they are intentionally trying to taunt Syria and Iran into a war, which appears plausible to me. The only obvious thing it does strategically is harm the government of Lebanon, which happens to be an anti-Syrian government supported by the U.S. And on a humanitarian level, it harms the people of Lebanon who are half-Christian and generally well-educated moderates. Probably time for Kevin to put his Lebanese election hot-babe photo up again.
McCain…if Hezbollah is NOT crapping in their pants, it is only because they are not bright enough to do so. Sad commentary.
I do not believe Israel is going to stop this time. And if they head for Damascus then Assad will certainly crap in HIS pants!!
The rubicon has indeed been crossed.
I don’t think Is will go into Syria unless they have direct provocation or involment of Syria in this war. I think this time they will take the opportunity to break Hamas and Hezbollah to such an extent that it will take a long time for them to recover (a favor to the Lebanon gov). Also they need to bomb the airports, the roads, and the bridges to prevent the top Hezbollah guys to escape and for weapons to come in. If Syria and Iran stand by while their proxy Hezbollah gets pummeled by Israel, then it doesn’t look good for them. If they want to join war, this is the time to deal with them both. Either way, this may be a good thing.
Hey guys, they are trying to prevent the hostages from being airlifted, that’s why they hit the airport. Syria and Iran will ultimately be found with smoking guns in their closet, and that is when the real fun begins.
Oh c’mon now, let’s be serious. The speculation that maybe, perhaps, kinda sorta but who knows, someone wants to take hostages to Iran is a throw away line meant to justify the act of bombing civilian infrastructure as they ratchet up the pressure on our friendly government in Lebanon. Hezbollah isn’t going to be putting hostrages on an airplane. The chances of that anti-Syrian government now falling are too high for comfort in my estimation.
Personally, I hope Israel ignores what the UN and EU think and go all out. It’s time to stop this nonsense and wipe out these terrorists and corrupt terrorist-funding governments. Alas, I don’t think that will happen, more’s the pity.
Iran is definitely in on this little party, and probably Syria, too. However, I’d keep my eyes on Russia and China and watch what they do. Russia is backing Iran in its own semi-quiet way. If China is smart it will sit back and see who comes out on top and work on its economy in the meantime.
Steve quibbles:
Seems to me we were promised the very opposite with the removal of Saddam. “The end of Saddam’s regime will also remove a source of violence and instability in the Middle East. …
And? Is this not true? Did the source of terror-financing that came from Saddam Hussein not end?
The financing hole was back-filled. It was unrealistic to expect it wouldn’t be. So you take out the next financier. And that hole will be back-filled. Repeat operation. Until you have the paramilitary operations being financed by fewer and fewer sources, and those sources either go broke or give up.
Paramilitancy without financing is just a whole bunch of pissed off peasants with pointy sticks. At which point they either have to get a job or starve to death.
Fine words but little resemblence to the realities on the ground
On the contrary, it matches reality quite well. When you’re ill and the doctor gives you a prescription for, say, an antibiotic, do you immediately recover? No, you do not. In fact, it’s very likely you get worse for a while.
“Oh, hey, that doc’s a quack. He gave me these pills, said I’d get better, now I’m worse, so I won’t take the pills anymore!!”
I’ll send your widow a nice condolence card, Steve.
Juan Cole’s latest entry “Both Sunni and Shiite clerics and politicians condemned the Israeli attack on Lebanon on Friday. The Friday sermons were thunderous. Money and resources will likely flow to Hizbullah and the Palestinians. More later”…..
the law of unattended consequences. I have said before that the one thing everyone can agree on was the insurance policy coverage Saddam was given to Palestian terrorist suicide bombers was full stop disgraceful. Bush should have made more of this charge than he did. in the runup to the Iraqi war. However it seems that now that the powder keg in the mid East has exploded Israel in its heavy bombing of Lebanon including many residential areas and the Beirut airport is instilling terror in the civilan population of a pro-western very fragile democracy which Bush has made much effort to stabilise..
correction.. Its the ‘law of unintended consequences’. This it certainly is, if this happens as a result of ‘Israeli reprisals for terrorist attacks’.