Is Israel Refusing to Win?

Is Israel's political leadership refusing to win in Lebanon?

It has only been two weeks since the start of the counter-offensive against Hizbullah terror, and already Israel's government is rejecting the military's professional recommendations for how to achieve victory.

At a meeting held late into the night on Wednesday, Israel's security cabinet denied the army's request to launch a more expansive ground operation in southern Lebanon with the aim of clearing the area entirely of Hizbullah's terrorist infrastructure.

Instead, the cabinet prefers to continue using airpower combined with pinprick ground incursions against select Hizbullah targets.

The result, of course, has been that Hizbullah continues to succeed in firing some 100 rockets each day into Israel. Because they do not face a concerted Israeli ground offensive, Hizbullah does not have to throw everything it has into fighting off the Israeli army.

Consequently, they can deploy men and resources to shoot rockets into northern Israel with the aim of terrorizing the country.

Don’t get me wrong – a ground offensive aimed at carving out a security zone in southern Lebanon would not be simple or risk-free. But Israel's limited operations thus far have failed to stop the attacks, and the army's experts are saying that the only way to do so over the long-term is to go in full force.

If that is the key to stopping Hizbullah terror, then that is what the army must do. Let's just hope the politicians don't stand in the way, and prevent Israel from winning this all-important battle.

The photo that says it all

Every once in a while, a photographic image emerges which captures the very essence of a major international issue.

It doesn't happen every day, but when it does, the power of the underlying problem suddenly becomes eminently clear.

One such photo (see below) now appears on the website of Time magazine (of all places!!), where young kids in a Hizbullah scouting troop are shown pledging to die for the cause while raising their hands in the air in a chillingly-familiar salute.

Coincidence? I doubt it. Hizbullah leaders are knowledgeable enough to understand the meaning of that pose, which was burned into the memory of the Jewish people, and that of the entire world, some six decades ago in the heart of Europe.

Hizbullah's stated aim, of course, is to destroy the Jewish state, and their actions over the past two weeks have only served to underline their determination to target the innocent.

So take a good long, look at that photo, and you will see what Hizbullah is busying filling its children's minds with. And then, you'll also understand and appreciate far more profoundly just what it is that Israel is up against.

The Media's Selective Coverage

The soldiers have moved across the international border, with the aim of stopping an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group.

The terrorists are occupying large swathes of the neighboring country, which has been wracked for decades by civil war and bloody internecine conflict.

Sounds familiar, right?

Well, in fact, the above scenario is playing itself out not only along Israel's northern border, but in the Horn of Africa, too, where Ethiopia has moved troops into Somalia to counter an Islamic fundamentalist militia that has seized control over parts of the country.

Ethiopia legitimately fears the destabilizing effect of having a fundamentalist terrorist group based next door, particularly since the Somali Islamists aspire to create a "Greater Somalia" that would incorporate parts of Ethiopia itself. And so, Ethiopia has done what any normal country would do in such a situation: they have moved to protect themselves and their interests from harm.

Why do I bring this up? Because it underlines the hypocrisy and double standard that is applied by the media and much of the international community, which is only too happy to denounce Israel for defending itself, while remaining silent when others do precisely the same thing.

Selective media coverage? You bet.

Selective morality at the UN? Case closed.