Alea iacta est

The End of the Cedar Revolution

I was going to write something clever on the events in Lebanon, but lost interest. Many words, both online and on newsprint, have already been expended on the topic, and little of it seems to have helped people's understanding of the situation.

We hear a lot of "proportionality", and criticisms of Israel for this and that, but, the fact of the matter is, Hezbollah is a known terrorist organisation, and Lebanon, the Middle East and, yes, the world, would be far better off without it.

Whether Israel will succeed in destroying it is another matter altogether.

It is true that the Lebanese as a whole do not deserve this. The deaths of innocents is always regrettable, and the death of children is even more tragic, but the culpability for such things rests with Hezbollah. It is that group's tactics of using civilians, suburbia and UN positions as cover as it fires rockets at Haifa, Nazareth and other Israeli towns that is killing the Lebanese.

It is one thing to decry war, and the loss of life involved. It is quite another to support a group that is a proxy of a regime with fascist, imperialist aims. Make no mistake, Hezbollah's true motives are not to do with the "liberation" of Lebanon - indeed, it sided with Syria during the Cedar Revolution. It cares little for the plight of the Palestinians - indeed, that is just a fig-leaf.

It is purely a vehicle for the Iranian regime to recognise its long held goals - domination of the Middle East.

To support Hezbollah means one of two things - Ignorance on their true nature; Or a deep abiding dislike of Jews, coupled with a taste for religious fascism. If the former, you may be genuinely mistaken or a moral imbecile. If the latter, you aren't "anti-war" - you're pro-war - you just happen to be on the other side.

(Cartoon courtesy of Indymediawatch - who has many great posts on the conflict, and Indymedia's response to it. )

Posted by Quentin George at July 31, 2006 09:11 PM