[Chronwatch] Dan Gordon - One of the great benefits to those of the West to come out of Hizballah's recent offensive against Israel is the certain knowledge that Hizballah is the terrorist extension of Iran's expressed foreign policy. Hizballah and everyone else in the world knew perfectly well that when Israel left every centimeter of Lebanese soil in 2000, it did so with the intent never to return. It not only had no designs on southern Lebanon, it dreaded doing so. Much has been made in the Western press of Hizballah's benign social services function in Lebanon, of the hospitals and schools it has built. Almost no notice, however, has been paid to the large numbers of these hospitals and schools which were built over its military bunkers and rocket launching sites. Hizballah's true genius lay in its knowledge of the press. The calculus was simple: launch a rocket from within a civilian population; if you kill Jews that's a victory. If the Jews hit back and in so doing kill Lebanese civilians, that's a victory. If they don't hit back because they're afraid to hit civilians, that's a victory. The writer served as a captain in the IDF reserves during the recent war.
2006-09-04 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive