Muddling the war on terror

Mainstream support in the US and Europe for the global war on terror is still fairly easy to come by when the enemy is a rogue, independent group like Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. It becomes more of a challenge when dealing with groups like Lebanon’s Hizballah and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

Both Hizballah and Hamas are recognized by most governments in the West as terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, many of those same Western governments today advocate engaging the groups in dialogue due to the fact that both are also involved in local government.

The two primary arguments for that position are:

1. Hizballah and Hamas (and other similar groups) are an inescapable reality and integral part of their respective societies that cannot be ignored;

2. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hizballah and Hamas are localized resistance movements, despite their frequent verbal identification with a global Islamic outlook.

The first argument is a cop-out by nations that either are wary of sparking a clash of civilizations they refuse to believe is already in full swing, or are too afraid of afraid of their own Muslim minorities to be seen siding with a non-Muslim entity against Muslim groups.

Hizballah and Hamas have become integral parts of their respective societies precisely because the dominant powers that be have refused to make it clear that support for such groups is unacceptable. And I don’t mean by merely placing these groups on lists of recognized terrorist organizations. I mean by making the populations that harbor and support them really feel that they are paying too high a price for doing so.

The second argument sets an extremely dangerous precedent that can only lead to the perpetuation of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Hizballah and Hamas are on Western lists of recognized terrorist organizations because they engage in tactics that are terrorist in nature in order to achieve their political goals. Granting them any degree of legitimacy will only encourage Hizballah, Hamas and other “resistance movements” around the world to continue committing atrocities so long as their underlying cause is acceptable to the international community.

Take as an example a recent report that the United Nations is favorably considering a Lebanese proposal to redraw the Israel-Lebanon border in accordance with Lebanese and Hizballah demands in order to avoid future conflict.

The international community is critical of Hizballah’s assault on northern Israel that led to last summer’s war, but is now signaling that it accepts Lebanon’s claim that a small piece of the Golan Heights controlled by Israel is in fact Lebanese territory, which was Hizballah’s justification for attacking in the first place.

When all is said and done, Hizballah is going to brush off the international community’s anger over its tactics and hold up as a prize the fact that its assault on Israel led to the UN reversing an earlier decision in order to meet its demands. And that is going to provide enormous encouragement to every terrorist organization everywhere that is employing terrorist violence to achieve political gains.

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