Sunday, July 16, 2006
Jeff Jacoby walks it back:
Four days later, Hezbollah terrorists staged a raid across Israel's northern border, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Over the next day, more than 120 rockets rained down across northern Israel. Among the communities struck was Haifa, Israel's third-largest city and home to its busiest port and a large oil refinery. It was the first time rockets fired from Lebanon had penetrated so far into Israel; Haifa was thought to be out of Hezbollah's range.
Israel replied to Hezbollah's artillery barrages and hostage-taking with a military invasion, much as it did in Gaza last month in response to incessant rocket fire and the Hamas kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. In short order, Israel's warplanes struck Beirut's international airport, Hezbollah's offices, and two Lebanese army bases; the Israeli navy put Lebanon under a blockade.
And so Israel finds itself at war again, this time on two fronts against two of the most lethal terrorist forces in the world. Except that the real enemy confronting it is not Hamas and Hezbollah. Terrorist organizations cannot function without state sponsorship, and no state anywhere sponsors more Islamist terrorism than Iran...
Le'me see.
1. Iran has been shipping thousands of missiles to Hezbollah via Syria since 2005 and built special lookout towers along the border as well.
2. Ahmadinejad utters all sorts of threats against Israel and sponsors a big Holocaust denial conference as a follow-up to his World Without Zionism conference.
3.Iran comes to Hamas rescue when funding for the PA gets cut because Hamas continues to support terrorism and its intent to never recognize Israel's right to exist anywhere between the Jordan and the Med.
4. Hamas burrows under the aparteid wall on the Gaza - Israel border to attack a military outpost, no longer being satisfied to merely shell nearby cities such as Sderot, killing two soldiers and taking a third hostage.
5. About a week later, from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fires some rockets at Israel and manages in the confusion to take two soldiers hostage.
And Iran's Alawite partner in crime Syria, whose armies allegedly withdrew from Lebanon, continues to truck weapons into Lebanon.
But all of this is coincidental, I'm sure, and has nothing to do with the world's continued scrutiny of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and the quest to bring to justice Rafiq Hariri's assassins.