According to the latest opinion polls, the overwhelming majority of Americans (over 80%) see the current conflict in the Middle East not just as Israel versus Hezbollah, but as the U.S. versus Iran and they understand very well that the war in which Israel is now engaged is part of America's larger war against Islamic fascism. American support is overwhelming because the U.S. population is sick of the hypocrisy - the kind of hypocrisy that permits Hamas and Hezbollah to use children's playgrounds, civilian parking lots, apartment buildings and private homes to conceal their missiles while condemning Israel for a "callous disregard of human life" when it destroys those missiles - many of which contain ball bearings, nuts and bolts for maximum killing effect. (Wouldn't this suggest to a normal person that these people are, at a certain level, nuts?)
The kind of hypocrisy that permits terrorists to kidnap soldiers, ransom them off like chattels, fire missiles indiscriminately into civilian population centers, and then play the role of "victim" claiming racism, colonialism, Zionism, or whatever they can think of to get bailed out by a UN or EU-sponsored ceasefire that would allow them time to recoup their losses and kill again.
The kind of hypocrisy that permits Syria and Iran to re-arm Hamas and Hezbollah by land, sea and air, but condemns Israel for destroying these transportation and communications infrastructures because, in so doing, they are inflicting tragic but necessary collateral damage on the Lebanese civilian population.
The kind of hypocrisy that can only exist when a culture that values life, comes into conflict with a culture that extols death through "martyrdom;" a culture that sees human life of value only in so far as it can be used as a weapon of terror in the name of "jihad" (holy war). These tactics no longer hold sway in Washington or with the American people. Our leaders, both Democratic and Republican, now see the current conflict in the Middle East as the front line of a new war, and we must insure that their support for Israel does not falter. After all, in return for leaving northern Lebanon and Gaza, Israel has reaped the whirlwind. Truth be told, if all that was left of Israel was a tiny boat with a dozen Jews moored off the coast of Haifa, Israel's enemies would still complain about "the Zionist occupiers." This struggle has never been about borders. It has always been about the right of Israel as a Jewish State to exist in the Middle East. If that is not yet clear to the American people, then Israel is lost, and so too is America for on the most fundamental of
levels, this is a war for our way of life.
After 9/11, the London bombings, the Madrid bombings, the French riots, the Beslan atrocities, the religiously-inspired murders in India, the Danish cartoon jihad, the brutal slaughter of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh in the streets of Amsterdam, the beheadings of Dan Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and countless others, and the daily stories of Islamic terrorists plotting to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, bring down the Sears Tower and generally trying to murder innocent people around the globe, Americans have grown sick and weary of the lies, the deceit, the hypocrisy, the threats and the phony excuses of victimization and religious fascism that our enemies use to justify murder. Israel must be given the time to finish Hezbollah once and for all.
If the United States truly cares about human life and future peace not only in the Middle East but throughout the world, it should talk ad nauseam about "restraint" and "proportional response" but privately give Israel the pass it needs to smash Hamas and Hezbollah and humiliate Syria and Iran in the process - both international pariahs and enemies of the Free World.
Israel is fighting a war that inevitably results in terrible and visible damage to towns and cities and costs innocent lives. But these civilians are not the intended targets and yes, there is a moral difference. There is no moral equivalence between an aggressor who want you dead and seeks to conquer your land and a defender who asks only to survive and be left alone. Sometimes war is necessary and tragically, this is one of those times.
That is why the call for "restraint" reveals a fundamentally flawed understanding of terrorists and the American people now know it. As Pulitzer-prize winner Michael Goodwin wrote recently in the New York Daily News: "They (Hezbollah) are not interested in compromise any more than a mad dog will share its bone. Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons don't want to make a deal with Israel. They want to destroy Israel. And then America and Europe and Christians and ...". It is time we understood the "game plan" of the enemy. Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, said it best: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
Swell. It works both ways. That's why, peace is not the primary short term goal for Israel at the moment, not when terrorists still lurk on its borders, and fire rockets at its cities. Genuine peace is impossible so long as southern Lebanon is ruled by an Islamic group operating as a proxy for Iran and Syria. Now is not the time to stop this brutal war. Human nature notwithstanding, peace is not always the best answer. Not when wrongs must be righted. Sometimes, deadly force is the only righteous option. Like a bully who deserves a thorough thrashing, Hezbollah needs to be taught a lesson. It can either learn to live in peace, or it can and will die.
With Hezbollah firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli population centers even as Israel drops leaflets in Arabic telling the south Lebanese to head north out of harm's way, Hezbollah has no moral standing to determine the nature and extent of Israel's response. Nor, for that matter, does the world. Israel is fighting for it's survival and the survival of the civilized world against the forces of darkness, so Western leaders must stand fast. That is the only message worth conveying. Israel will do the rest.
