Hezbollah & the Destruction of Israel
(Updated August 2006)
Hezbollah makes no
secret of its objective, namely, the destruction
of Israel. It committed an act of war by
crossing the international
border and attacking
soldiers in Israel and kidnaping two of them.
It escalated the war by indiscriminately
firing missiles at Israeli cities.
Toward the end of 1982, Iran sent fighters
to assist in the establishment of a revolutionary Islamic movement in Lebanon. The radical Shi’ia Muslim group that emerged was Hezbollah.
Led by religious clerics, the organization aspires
to create an Iranian-style theocracy in Lebanon and,
ultimately, establish an Islamic government across
the Arab world. In recent years, Hezbollah has become part
of the Lebanese political process, but it
also uses terror as a means to achieve its
goals.
As the organizational infrastructure
developed, Hezbollah, with Iranian and Syrian assistance,
began to establish an extensive military
network in the Ba’albek area. Its militias
have since spread into the Shi’ite
neighborhoods in southern and western Beirut
as well as into southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has repeatedly carried out terrorist actions against Israelis and launched rockets into northern Israel. Israelis have not even
been safe outside their homeland. In 1992
and 1994, Hezbollah bombed the Israeli
Embassy and the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Eight days after the AMIA bombing, the Israeli
Embassy in London was car bombed by two Palestinians linked to Hezbollah.
According to Hezbollah, the United
States was to blame for many of the country’s
problems. Israel was seen as an extension
of the United States and a foreign power
in Lebanon. The immediate threat is to Israel,
but Hezbollah has also repeatedly targeted
Americans.
Here’s a partial list:
1982-1988 — Hezbollah held David Dodge,
acting president of the American University
in Beirut, captive for a year; kidnaped and
murdered Malcolm Kerr, a Lebanese-born American
who was president of the American University
of Beirut; abducted Jeremy Levin, Beirut
bureau chief of CNN, who later escaped; held
Reverend Benjamin Weir for 16 months; seized
diplomat William Buckley and he was never
heard from again; kidnaped Frank Reed, director
of the American University in Beirut, and
held him 44 months; held Joseph Cicippio,
the acting comptroller at the American University
in Beirut for five years; and abducted and
murdered Col. William Higgins, the American
chief of the United Nations Truce Supervisory
Organization.
April 18, 1983 — A truck-bomb exploded
in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing
63 employees, including the CIA's Middle
East director, and wounding 120.
Oct. 23, 1983 — A truck loaded with
a bomb crashed into the lobby of the U.S.
Marines headquarters in Beirut, killing 241
soldiers and wounding 81.
April 12, 1984 — Hezbollah bombed
a restaurant near a U.S. Air Force base in
Torrejon, Spain, killing 18 servicemen and
wounding 83 people.
September 20, 1984 — A suicide bomb
attack on the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut
killed 23 people and injured 21.
December 4, 1984 — Hezbollah terrorists
hijacked a Kuwait Airlines plane and murdered
American passengers Charles Hegna and William
Stanford.
June 14, 1985 — Hezbollah members hijacked a TWA
flight and murdered Robert
Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver. Three
members of Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyah, Hasan
Izz-al-Din, and Ali Atwa, are on the FBI's
list of 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for the
hijacking.
It is tragic that Lebanese civilians are
harmed, but the only ones showing concern
for noncombatants are the Israelis, who are
pinpointing their attacks rather than carpet
bombing areas where they know Hezbollah has
bases. Hezbollah has no regard whatsoever
for innocents and that is why it operates
inside residential neighborhoods. Of course,
they care even less about innocent Jews than
they do their own people and indiscriminately
fire their rockets into Israeli cities.
Former diplomats are calling for political
intervention, but just what is Israel supposed
to negotiate with a group bent on its destruction?
The diplomats’ answer is to capitulate
to Hezbollah demands and trade dozens of Arab prisoners for two soldiers, a formula
that would give the terrorists an incentive
to continue to kidnap Israelis and do nothing
to eliminate the ongoing threat that Hezbollah has proven now extends to the heart of Israel.
Diplomats also appeal to the major powers
to take political steps to stop the violence,
and emergency sessions are called at the UN. But we’ve seen this movie before.
In fact, the world did come up with a diplomatic “solution” in
2004 – UN
Security Council Resolution 1559. The resolution specifically called
on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah and to deploy its army in the south. The
international community did nothing, however,
to enforce that resolution, and the Lebanese
government proved unable and/or unwilling
to fulfill its duty.
The violence can only be stopped if there
is a clear, unified message from the world’s
leaders that terrorism and unprovoked acts
of war on sovereign nations will not be allowed
to stand. Israel must be permitted to eliminate
the rocket threat posed by Hezbollah. Then Hezbollah must release the Israeli soldiers
unharmed and the Lebanese government must
implement UN Resolution
1559. If the international
community is to end the crises in the long-term,
it must be prepared to deal with the countries
that helped precipitate this war, Hezbollah’s
patrons in Syria and Iran.
Israel is now being criticized for responding “disproportionately,” but
what would be the proportionate response
to a terrorist group trying to destroy you?
Should Israel fire missiles indiscriminately
at Lebanon because that would be equivalent
to what Hezbollah is now doing? What would
the United States do if rockets were raining
down on its cities?
Some countries are also calling for Israel
to exercise restraint. Does anyone believe France would show the slightest restraint
if its cities were under attack? Just ask
the people of the Ivory Coast, thousands
of miles away, about French restraint there.
And what about the Russian idea of restraint?
We’ve seen it firsthand in their treatment
of terrorists in Moscow and the prosecution
of their war in Chechnya. These countries
have no moral authority to lecture Israel.
The
media has devoted much of its attention
to images of the Lebanese. We’ve seen
very little of the damage in Israel or interviews
with Israeli families forced to live in bomb
shelters. Every report has mentioned the
American citizens who are in Lebanon, but
nothing is being said about the thousands
of Americans in Israel endangered by the Hezbollah missile attacks.
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