Hezbollah's Triumph

Hezbollah's Triumph
By Alan M. Dershowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 1, 2006

Sunday was a day of great triumph for Hezbollah. Its tactics had worked. By
launching rockets at Israeli civilians within yards of a building filled
with refugees, Hezbollah had induced Israel to make a terrible mistake. Its
defensive rocket had missed the Hezbollah launchers and hit the civilian
building. That was Hezbollah's plan all along. As Israelis wept in grief
over the deaths of the Lebanese children, Hezbollah leaders celebrated its
propaganda victory.

Yes, Hezbollah was happy that an Israeli rocket had killed Lebanese
children. The children were now in paradise, martyrs to Hezbollah's cause.
Israel was being condemned throughout the world for "killing"
children-"massacre" was the most common word used in the Arab media. The
Israelis apologized, but that was not enough to put out the flames of anger
or to quiet the shrill calls for revenge.

Israel produced evidence proving that it was largely Hezbollah's fault.
Hezbollah was using Lebanese children as involuntary human shields-surely a
war crime. Hezbollah was preventing civilians-who had been repeatedly warned
by Israel to leave the battle zone-from moving out of harm's way. Hezbollah
sympathizers were shown on TV defiantly tearing up the Israeli leaflets, as
if to say "we're staying" Hezbollah had refused to build bomb shelters for
ordinary civilians-only for their own leaders. Hezbollah knew (and Israel
didn't) that children were in the so-called safe house. That is why it
deliberately used the safe house as a shield behind which to five rockets at
Israel. Hezbollah used its rocket launchers as "bait" to induce Israel to
fire at them in order to increase the chances that Israel's rocket would
misfire and hit the "safe house". It was a perfect plan. Leaders of
Hezbollah knew it could count on the international community to finish its
dirty work by condemning Israel, rather than Hezbollah for the deaths caused
deliberately by Hezbollah. Israel has, of course, rightly apologized for the
deaths caused by its rocket. Hezbollah never apologizes for deliberately
causing civilian deaths, except when the deaths are of Arab children, as was
the case in Nazareth.

When it comes to Israel, a lot of usually smart people stop thinking with
their heads, and start thinking with their guts. Most smart people know that
when an armed criminal takes a hostage and fires from behind him, it is the
criminal, not the policeman, who is guilty of murder, if the policeman, in a
reasonable effort to stop the criminal from firing, accidentally kills the
innocent hostage. The same should be true during wartime. But you wouldn't
know it if you listened only to the singular condemnations of Israel by so
many in the international community.

But not all. Just days before this Hezbollah orchestrated tragedy, Jan
Egeland, the UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, had
essential predicted it. He chided Hezbollah for being "a bunch of cowards
hiding behind women and children." He said that he "cannot understand how
someone could be proud that there were more women and children hurt than
armed militants." And he "call[ed] for the Hezbollah to immediately stop
mixing with the civilian population." But Hezbollah did not listen to
Egeland. Instead they fired their Katyusha from behind the apartment in Qana
knowing that it was filled with civilians.

The President of Lebanon praised Hezbollah. For what? For using its children
as shields? When was the last time a leader thanked the criminal for taking
a hostage who was then killed in the shootout? The Arab world, the Islamic
world and the rest of the Israel-haters have now rallied behind Hezbollah.
Hatred of Israel has even managed to heal the millennium long divisions
between Shias and Sunnis.

Every day more Arabs and the Muslims kill other Arabs and Muslims in the
Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world than the Israelis
have killed in three weeks of combat. But the international community-and
the Arab world-turns a blind eye. Indeed, in the Sudan, where thousands have
died, many Arab governments actually support the Sudanese government and its
genocidal policies. Even "peaceful" nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, have
killed more Muslim and Arab dissidents, extremists, and terrorists than
Israel has-and without much protest.

The real victory for Hezbollah is that it has caused grief and dissent in
Israel over the death of the children. This will cause Israel to show more
"restraint", as it has already done by declaring a 48 hour cessation of air
attacks. This will give the terrorists a freer hand at launching rockets.
The end result will be more Israel civilian casualties. The sad truth is
that the Israelis care more about the lives of innocent Lebanese children
than Hezbollah does. As Golda Meir once said about her Arab enemies: "We can
perhaps forgive them for killing our children, but we can never forgive them
for making us kill their children." How prescient.

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