This was an article that I wrote on 22 July 2006 after an email interview with Dr. Noam Chomsky of MIT. This article briefly discusses a bit of the internal dynamics in the US-Israeli aggression against the "republicanistically" elected government of southern Lebanon, which is the "Party of God," or Hezbollah. I am not an apologist for Islamo-fascist Muslim terrorists, ie the Salafists. However, Hezbollah are not Salafists, they are a party committed to defending the people of southern Lebanon against Israeli and US aggression, which is reasonable. What is not as reasonable is their position on Israel outright, which is essentially that Israel must be destroyed. Please read the article objectively and think about is reasonably rather than call me a revisionist or terrorist sympathizer. Furthermore, I only support a bi-national solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The central issue that the American and Israeli governments have at present is that, as they assert, Hezbollah is using Southern Lebanon as a "sanctuary" from which to launch attacks against Israel. This culminated with the incidents which occurred on 25 June 2006 and 12 July 2006 which HR 921 calls "...completely unprovoked attack(s) that occurred in undisputed Israeli territory..." When I questioned Dr. Noam Chomsky of MIT about these issues in an email interview, he replied about the events of 25 June by saying, "...the current upsurge in hostilities did not begin on 25 June. Rather, the day before, when the Israeli army carried out another attack in Gaza, swooping in to kidnap two civilians, a doctor and his brother. The kidnapping of the soldier the next day was probably retaliation, some Middle East scholars believe." Thus, these so-called "unprovoked attacks" are actually in retaliatory in nature, and the US ostensibly recognizes nations' rights to defend themselves.
So, why does the US not recognize Hezbollah's right to self-defense. Perhaps it is because the US State Department has identified Hezbollah under the highly nebulous and arbitrary, (in the sense that whoever controls the State Department, which are unelected positions, essentially gets to decide who are terrorists), label of "terrorist group." Furthermore, in March 2005, the House of Representatives voted 380 to 3 for a resolution condemning "the continuous terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah." However, before the events of 25 Jun 06 Hezbollah had not been credited with a major terrorist attack since the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. This means that when the House resolution passed Hezbollah had not been given responsibility for a major terrorist attack in 11 years.
This bit of foreshadowing by Congress is all to appropriate. Irony seems surround respective US and Israeli stances on Hezbollah. The American news has been reporting that Israel may want the Lebanese army to execute a relief-in-place after they have destroyed Hezbollah elements in Southern Lebanon near the Litani River. It is ironic that the Israelis want to fight Hezbollah but not the Lebanese army, though Hebollah is a democratically-elected major party in Lebanese politics, holding fourteen seats in the Lebanese parliament with two ministers in the government and another supported by the party. This can certainly be construed as an attempt to undermine Lebanese democracy, which the US purports to support.
In response to my questions about the events of 12 Jul 06, Dr. Chomsky responded by saying:
"Turning to July 12, Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. Two reasons were given, accepted by virtually all serious scholars and journalists (though the White House and Israel have a different story, and the US media toe the line so closely that they are ridiculed even in the business press in England): some support for Palestinians under vicious attack by an invading army, and prisoner exchange. Analysts differ on the relative weight of the two factors, but each is quite plausible. Is it wrong to capture soldiers? Sure. But for the US and Israel to take this stand is possible only because of the remarkable obedience of the educated classes. In most of the world, it's regarded as a sick joke, certainly in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where the facts are not concealed."
It is quite clear that the US and Israel are both being dishonest about their intentions with Lebanon. On a 21 July interview on Larry King Live, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that it was obvious Israeli intentions in Lebanon go beyond the recovery of two soldiers. With Israeli troops deploying to the border an Israeli invasion of Lebanon seems imminent. Perhaps the Israelis are merely inspired by and trying to emulate the actions of their parent state in Iraq. This is all a dangerous and foreboding trend, and one hopes for some honest coverage by the mainstream American media about the issue before uniformed tacit support for violent foreign policy once again leads to the deaths of American troops.