Most European leaders, the Vatican, the UN and various commentators have a common thread when it comes to the war in the Middle East....Israel is reacting `excessively' and `punishing Lebanon' because of terrorist acts committed by Hezbollah, just as the Israelis are said to be `collectively punishing' the Palestinians.
Frankly, this exhibits not only some sloppy thinking but yet another example of some very selective rules applied to Israel and Israel alone.
To start with, neither the attack by Hezbollah nor the attack by Hamas constitute terrorist acts.
Nor do I consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be `terrorist organizations'.
Hezbollah is an official part of the Lebanese government. Some of its members hold cabinet posts in Lebanon's government. For Hezbollah to attack an Israeli military post across an internationally recognized border, kill several soldiers and kidnap two others for ransom is not `terrorism'. It is an act of war by one sovereign government against another. And the government of Lebanon's response to that act of war plainly indicates that either it approves of that action or that it is simply not willing or able to do what any other responsible country would do if elements of its government acted unilaterally
Let's imagine that the governor of the US State of Vermont went bonkers (no cracks, please) and had the Vermont State troopers or the National Guard attack Canada, and they killed a number of Canadian citizens and kidnapped a couple of Mounties for ransom.
What do you think the Federal government in Washington would do? How long do you think it would take for the Feds to send troops to storm Montpellier, disarm the rogue troopers, lock the governor up in the nearest looney bin and send the Mounties back home with profuse apologies?
That's how sovereign governments act when something like that occurs. Unless they want to be in a shooting war.
Of course, Lebanon's government did nothing even remotely resembling that. The Lebanese government did not disavow Hezbollah's actions and make an attempt to get Israel's hostages back and return them to Israel. In fact, as the Israelis have shown, certain elements of the Lebanese army allowed Hezbollah to use facilities like radar stations to attack Israel. Whether that was done out of fear or out of sympathy for Hezbollah by the Lebanese government scarcely matters at this point..and so Lebanon has a war with Israel on its hands and all bets are off, particularly in view of how Hezbollah continues to lauch missiles against Israeli citizens from within Lebanon's borders with no attempt by the rest of the Lebanese government to stop it.
Hamas is no `terrorist organization' either. It is a freely elected sovereign government with all of the trappings of state including a parliament, security forces and even diplomats and a foreign ministry...well, they used to have a foreign ministry,anyway. To shoot qassam rockets against a neighboring sovereign state, to tunnel under a border fence on an internationally recognized border, attack a military base and make off with a hostage is not `terrorism'. It's an act of war by one sovereign state against another. ..just like the Israeli war with Lebanon.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
And guess what? War is collective punishment by its very nature. In the course of fighting wars, civilians unfortunately get killed and infrastructure gets destroyed. That's part of what makes war so unpalatable for most nations. And ultimately, what usually results in ending them. Can you imagine what General Patton or General Eisenhower would say to anyone suggesting that the allies' wholesale destruction of German infrastucture and the deaths of German civilians in bombing raids during WWII was an `excessive response ' or `collective punishment'?
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