Bibi and Slobo

There are grotesque comparisons being made to Israel and Serbia, Israel and South Africa in the bad old days, and even Netanyahu and Milosevic. In the first instance, Israel is a beleaguered democracy surrounded by hostile nations. Even Jordan and Egypt who have signed treaties with Israel do not have Israel's best interests at heart. Syria, Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon, and Iran are determined in their current incarnations to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians and too many restive Israeli Arabs agree with the genocidal objectives of the mad Mullahs of Tehran. Slobodan Milosevic was a petty thug who came to power in an undemocratic manner; Benyamin Netanyahu is coming to power the same way as Obama did, through electoral processes (though Israel's messy parliamentary system requires coalition building). Netanyahu has never employed any of the ethnic cleansing tactics that the Serbs used against Bosnians, Kosovars, or Croatians. He is a defender of Israel-not an aggressor in any aspect. The international left and Jew-hating rightists are also calling Israel an apartheid state. It is Palestinians who won't permit Jews to live among them. Palestinians murder their own who sell land or property to Jews. There are more than a million Arabs in Israel with full citizenship rights and Palestinians in the so-called West Bank. How many Jews are living in Gaza? The only apartheid that exists in the Middle East is the denial of rights to non-Muslims who are forced to live as dhimmi across the Arab world. Jews would be content to live with Arab neighbors as equals, but Muslims do not by in large share that sentiment.

The Stacked Deck

That the United Nations would pass resolutions critical of Israel, that the Security Council would call for an immediate ceasefire that would leave Hamas in situ to fire rockets at Israel and proclaim their victory- that of a terror group over a democracy, should surprise no one. The die was cast with the composition of the UN with tyrannies outnumbering democracies many times over as members of the august body, with some of the democracies having age-old animosity toward Jews as is reflected in their perpetration of the Shoah or active collaboration with the Nazis or calculated silence over the Holocaust when even public declarations offered the chance to slow the German machinery of genocide, participation in pogroms, and even in the Inquisition. These nations which could not wait to rid themselves of Jews, can never be counted on to fairly assess a moral equation between Israel and those who are committed to destroying the Jewish state. They will always seek some flaw in the conduct of today's Jew to justify the anti-Semitic actions of their progenitors. If Jews may be portrayed as Nazis (a gross falsehood and mischaracterization of the ethical conduct of the IDF by the way, as no military force in history has gone farther to protect innocent life even imperiling Israeli troops to protect people who are in favor of the removal of the Jewish state at a minimum and more often than not would support the genocide of Jews), the destruction of the Jews of Europe becomes easier to rationalize. Arab and Muslim members of the General Assembly will vote against Israel at every turn. Nations in the thrall of the left the world over will routinely denounce Israel. Israel's restraint of using surgical precision and jeopardizing their own ground forces will win few friends in the UN as multi-lateralism has become the enemy of democracies acting in their self-interest in general and Israel protecting herself in particular. It is disheartening though that in the waning days of the Bush administration that the US did not veto the UNSC ceasefire resolution that if implemented, rewards terror and the deliberate use of Palestinian civilians as hostages for Hamas or Hamas's willing accomplices as human shields to defeat this imperiled democracy only inviting future attacks by Hamas, Hizbullah, and their sponsor Iran.

Some Informed Speculation

Whether Hizbullah launched the rockets into Israel will soon become apparent. If the attack is a limited barrage, it may have been generated by al Qaeda sympathizers or Palestinian groups such as the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command). If the missile fire is sustained, there can be no doubt that it is generated by Hizbullah, in all likelihood at Iran's behest. Hizbullah is no mere terror group but an integral force now in the government of Lebanon. Hizbullah has increased the size of its arsenal, its range, and lethality since the last war. If this is an assault by Hizbullah, Israel can not mount only an air war or a charge to the Litani to counter it. She must wage a war of sovereign states against not only Hizbullah, the terrorist organization that has muscled its way into the governance of Lebanon but against the Lebanon Armed Forces(LAF) which acquiesced and allowed genocidal Shia Islamists to share power, and against the institutions of the compromised Lebanese state. Watch for Syria to maneuver forces to threaten Israel on the Golan as well and don't be surprised to see a terrorist foray there as well facilitated by Assad or permitted by him.

The Second Front

Missiles rained once again on the civilian populace in Israel. Ominously, they did not fall only on Sderot and the region abutting Gaza but fell all the way across the country after being fired from Lebanon. Israeli strategic planners no doubt anticipated this contingency. This could well be the nasty handiwork of Hizbullah and could have been coordinated by the merchants of menace in Tehran. If Iran has a nuclear warhead ready and a viable delivery system, they may use it soon and test the new President as he never imagined.