Israel could have made up for its failure to execute an effective battle plan during last summer’s Second Lebanon War with a bit of persistence, rather than jumping at the first opportunity for a ceasefire, a Hizballah field commander has admitted. Continue reading »

France has reportedly warned Israel to keep its hands of senior Hizballah officials invited to participate in a diplomatic conference in Paris. The warning came after French intelligence claimed it learned of a Mossad plot to nab as many of the Hizballah chiefs as possible. Continue reading »

Michael Williams, special advisor on the Middle East to the new UN chief, assured the world on Tuesday that during his recent visit to Jerusalem he “forcefully” let Israel know that its violations of Lebanese airspace are unacceptable.

But I wonder if the UN has employed equal force in insisting that Lebanon comply with its obligations under the truce deal that ended last summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah?

Of course, I know the answer to that one.

Apparently, these nitwits are more concerned about Lebanon’s sovereignty over the air than they are about another war erupting because still-heavily-armed Hezbollah can’t keep its missiles in its pants.

Senior Israeli defense officials and politicians are trying their best to downplay talk of war with Syria in the coming year.

But their words tend to ring hollow amid the contrary assessments and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s order to the IDF to prepare for war just in case.

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While most of the mainstream media is extra careful to not label the members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas as terrorists, there are some who refuse to be so “open minded” as to afford the murderers of men, women and children any such courtesy. That minority of journalists, however, is often accused of unfairly slanting the news and driving away the average user with “subjective” language.

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As if its first two reports regarding the summer’s Lebanon war were not enough, Amnesty International this week released a third report making sure everyone is clear that it believes Israel is guilty of war crimes.

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested following talks with her Saudi counterpart on Tuesday that the Arab world has come to a concensus on the need to recognize Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish state.

Either Rice is visiting a Middle East in some parallel universe, or she is severely out of touch with the will of the Arab street.

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US President George W. Bush said following the September 11, 2001 attacks on his nation that from hence forth there could be no distinction between terrorist killers and the people and nation’s who harbor, finance and support them.

If that is the case, then everyone has got to stop treating the Palestinian Arabs with kid gloves!

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Contrary to its nature, Amnesty International has released a report accusing a Muslim entity of committing war crimes against the Jewish state.

The “human rights” group rightly says that Hizb’allah’s rocket barrages against northern Israel this summer, which purposely targeted civilian population centers, were in violation of international law. The organization also rightly rejected Hizb’allah’s counter-claim that the rocket attacks were merely reprisals for Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

It will be interesting to see if Amnesty and those affiliated with and influenced by it now seek to prosecute Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and other Hizb’allah officials in the same way they do alleged Israeli war criminals.

I wonder also if Amnesty will read enough of the Geneva Conventions to realize that, while regrettable, the deaths of so many Lebanese at the hands of Israeli forces does not constitute a violation of international law since Hizb’allah was using the civilian population as a shield (Convention IV, Art. 28).

A nation has a right to defend itself against deadly aggression, even if its attacker is hiding behind innocents, and Geneva recognizes that right.

But maybe I am getting ahead of myself. We cannot expect too much balance from Amnesty all at once.

Reading through the news today on the arms embargo Israel and the international community are trying to implement against Hizb’allah, it struck me how naive the world’s relations with the Arab Middle East remain to this day.

Germany has sent a team of border police and customs experts to advise the Lebanese on how to most effectively keep their borders shut to illegal terrorist arms shipments. The very misguided assumption is that Beirut wants to and will deny terrorists such as Hizb’allah the arms they need just as vigorously as Germany, Britain or the US would.

For some reason, the world continues to ignore the fact that a large portion of the Lebanese vote for Hizb’allah in national elections, the group has two ministers in the Cabinet, Lebanon’s president publicly praises Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as a national hero, and the army openly admits that it views Hizb’allah as a strategic military asset.

Imagine if following the 9/11 attacks on the US the international community decided to take Taliban-controlled Afghanistan at its word that no more arms or funds would reach the Al Qaeda killers in its midst. I doubt that would have been acceptable to most Americans.

Now, Lebanon is a country deeply divided down religious lines, and some sects and religions truly do want Hizb’allah gone. Some even take Israel’s side and openly support the Jewish state.

But those who genuinly oppose terrorism, even against Israel, are most definitely the exception in the Middle East, and are not the majority in Lebanon. Though Hizb’allah is Shi’ite and most of the Arab world is dominated by Sunni Islam, the maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” forms the basis of most relations in this region, and few could care less about a group’s background so long as it is killing Jews and advancing the greater Arab cause.

And so, while the world believes that Hizb’allah’s minority base of direct support in Lebanon will equal success for the embargo, we can expect the terror group to begin taking delivery of Syrian and Iranian arms again in the very near future.