Hezbollah threatens

While we're on the subject of Lebanon, consider the message of Hassan Nasrallah yesterday, as reported by the BBC: "Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has told thousands of supporters at a rally in Lebanon that the disappearance of Israel is inevitable. 'The presence of Israel is but temporary and cannot go on in the region,' he told the Beirut rally."

I make no more expansive claim than that Israel has strong geographical and historical warrant for treating this as a statement of intent rather than of aspiration, and that the latter would in any event be a threatening intervention in the affairs of the region. I'm a friend and supporter of Israel, not because she is a Jewish state but primarily because she is a democracy in a part of the world where constitutional government is rare. (I have no concern with the fortunes of Judaism, but plenty with those of the Jews.) Hezbollah threatens Israel in a sense I wrote about in the wake of Israel's intervention in Lebanon 18 months ago:

"UN security council resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. That resolution, clearly covering Hizbullah, has not been implemented. In those circumstances Israel is entitled to defend its citizens and its sovereignty.

"Israel can't be defeated by Hizbullah, but an existential threat to the Jewish state is not the proper measure of a terrorist group's capacities. So long as Hizbullah remains in southern Lebanon, Israeli civilians face a continuous threat of rocket attacks or periodic incursions. The aim and effect are comparable to those of the suicide bomber in Israeli towns. Death may strike at any time. No democratic government can long survive, or ought to tolerate, a position in which civilians need reserves of courage merely to live within its boundaries."

Completely contrary to the spirit and the letter of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, marking the end of Israel's campaign in 2006, that threat has grown stronger. Nasrallah acknowledges receiving weaponry from Iran, via Syria. In the post immediately below this one, I recalled Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. That was a disastrous enterprise fought for illegitimate ends. Israel had neither justice nor prudence on its side in seeking to install the Maronite Christians as victors in Lebanon's civil war; or in pursuing an eventual annexation of the West Bank; or in undermining King Hussein of Jordan with a view to an east bank "settlement" of Palestinian national claims. But the rationale of Israel's intervention in 2006 was nothing like this: it was to defend Israeli civilians against a force whose very existence as an armed militia is in explicit defiance of international law. Standing with Israel is, in these circumstances, an imperative of progressive politics.

Comments

[Alcuin]

UNSCR 1559 was also, of course, a Chapter 7 resolution, placing an obligation on the UN to enforce its implementation. These days, unfortunately, the UN has neither the means nor the will to carry out its obligations.

Neither will many reading this be surprised that Iran or its proxies will respond to little but force, and will say anything to further their millennial aims.

[F.M. Zutano]

"I'm a friend and supporter of Israel, not because she is a Jewish state but primarily because she is a democracy in a part of the world where constitutional government is rare."

Israel's raison d'etre is Judaism. You can support Jews without supporting Israel.

It really is strange to see how so many self-proclaimed atheists see nothing wrong with defending a state rooted in biblical prophecy.

[Fabian from Israel]

Thank you, Oliver.

Sadly, it seems that we are going to have another double war, with Hamas and Hezbollah, soon.

Zutano: get a life.

[Martin]

Mr. Kamm,

1. Israel's right to exist is non-negotiable; despite the result of the 2006 war (best described as a classic FA Cup upset, a bit like Stalybridge Celtic knocking out Manchester United) Hezbollah is no more capable of harming it than, say, Stalybridge Celtic is capable of beating Manchester United to the Premiership; and,

2. It never ceases to astonish me how English liberals will sweat blood and bullets over causes which have absolutely no impact on their own lives while ignoring the dangers on their doorstep. Come, Oliver, share your vision of the Union's future with us. Do you really want in independent, non-aligned Scotland on your doorstep? One whose security policy might involve hosting Russian naval exercises in the Firth of Clyde? That issue's a bit more pressing than worrying about Hezbollah.

[Marc]

F.M. Zutano, that is an astonishingly ahistorical comment. Israel's founders were, almost without exception, secular, and Zionism initially had little support amongst the Orthodox. Religious Zionism is a relatively recent concept.

[Hasan Prishtina]

Martin, am I to hop that your view of the 2006 war as "a classic FA Cup upset" does not reflect your general views about the suffering and death of your fellow humans?

I would like to think that your second comment doesn't answer my question.

[Oliver Kamm]

Mr Kelly, I have publicly debated the SNP's views on national security with the party's defence spokesman very recently. That is not the subject of this post. Your indifference to human suffering internationally is in accord with your previous blog comments, notably your support for the hapless faker Neil Clark's campaign on the Iraqi interpreters. That is not, however, a sentiment I sympathise with or intend to debate with you.

[Friedrich M.]

"the rationale of Israel's intervention in 2006 was . . . to defend Israeli civilians"

LOLZ

Oliver Kamm's one size fits all philosophy - Bombing civilians to smithereens is cool as long as democracies do it.

[Martin]

Mr. Kamm,

Should you ever care to engage in a little research, you will find that, subject to qualification, I have since recanted the position of which you complain. I'll send you links if you like.

And I hope that your use of the word 'faker' to describe Neil Clark was measured in advance, and not just a burst of anger at the keyboard. As Justin Raimondo, another of your targets, has often remarked, on the Internet your sins live forever.

Hasan,

Suffering is relative. It is truly unfortunate that the peoples of the Balkans, Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere seem incapable of living together in friendship and amity; but to borrow a phrase from Theodore Dalrymple, it doesn't keep me from my dinner, not when one encounters those made to suffer by the casual inhumanity of the British state on a daily basis.

[Oliver Kamm]

Mr Kelly, you and Neil Clark urged a course that you knew would lead to the gruesome murder of scores of people serving British forces operating in Iraq under a UN mandate. If you have, "subject to qualification", since amended your position, then what is of autobiographical interest to you is of no interest to me. Please therefore spare me the links, and think twice before commenting further on my site.

I grant, however, that my regular readers will have relished your concern that I might in a fit of pique have said something about Mr Clark that I would have cause to regret. You may be assured - you may have rock-like certainty - that when I describe Mr Clark as a faker, I do so with deliberation, knowledge and the utmost complacence. Mr Clark's fraudulent conduct is, as my readers know, hardly of the sophisticated and undetectable variety; and as you say, and as Mr Clark has enduring cause to rue, on the Internet your sins live forever.

[szeni]

I don't see how 'the fortunes of Judaism' can be separated from 'those of the Jews'; non-religious Jewish communities disappear fast through assimilation and low birth-rate making a secular diaspora a dead-end. In Israel only religious Jews keep up with the Muslim Arab birth rate preventing - or at the very least delaying - the end of Israel as a nation state.
Judaism is just as crucial for the survival of the Jewish nation today as 2000 years ago.

[Adam]

I wonder, is supporting the scattering of unexploded cluster munitions in Southern Lebanon (as confirmed by HRW) an imperative of progressive politics?