In summer 2006 Israel began a bombing campaign against Hezbollah, a
Shi’a Islamist terrorist group who had been repeatedly sending suicide
bombers into Israel and deliberately targeting rockets at civilian
areas of Northern Israel. Britain eventually pushed for UN resolution
1701 which brought about a ceasefire in the ‘war’ between Hezbollah and
Israel, and arguably prevented Israel from finally crushing the
Islamist terrorist group.
Last week saw the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh – Hezbollah’s military commander and the tactical inspiration behind its suicide bombing campaign, which has subsequently been copied by Islamist terrorists across the world. Mughniyeh was killed in car bomb, blamed by Hezbollah on Israel, although Israel denied this and Mughniyeh certainly had other enemies. At his funeral, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the spiritual leader of Hezbollah threatened Israel with ‘open war’. A threat that exposed the naivety of the then British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett’s claim in 2006 that UN resolution 1701 offered the prospect of a permanent peace in the Middle East.
Yet, there is very little question that war between Hezbollah and Israel will re-erupt at some point in the not too distant future. The reasons are not hard to see...
- Hezbollah has still not been disarmed in accordance with UN resolution 1559 passed in 2004 and in fact announced immediately after the 2006 ‘ceasefire’ that it had no intention of doing so. Moreover, as the newly enlarged UN peacekeeping force has no mandate to disarm Hezbollah, there is no realistic possibility that it will be.
- Hezbollah is committed as a ‘non negotiable’ to the destruction of the state of Israel.
- Ideologically, Hezbollah follows a traditional interpretation of Islamic theology that states that once an area has once been subject to an Islamic government – it is an act of ‘defensive’ jihad to fight so that the area is again subject to an Islamic government i.e. Hezbollah does not regard targeting rockets and suicide bombers at Israeli civilians as an ‘offensive’ war, but rather as a ‘defensive’ war to reclaim what they regard as once having been Islamic sacred space.
It is now abundantly clear that unlike the British government, who saw 1701 as a more or less permanent ceasefire treaty, Hezbollah saw it in terms of a traditional Islamic treaty (hudna) – which functions as a temporary truce signed in order to gain a strategic advantage. This was in fact confirmed within weeks of the ceasefire being agreed, as Israel felt compelled to send its special forces into action to prevent Hezbollah restocking it’s rockets.
Now,
whilst we may lament Margaret Beckett’s naivety, the real question
arises as to how our present foreign secretary David Miliband will
react if another major conflict breaks out between Hezbollah and Israel
in the near future. Remember, it was David Miliband who is reported to
have pushed particularly hard in cabinet for the UN ceasefire
resolution that effectively prevented Israel effectively dealing with
Hezbollah.
It is an indictment of how political correctness has stifled open discussion that it is now difficult to use the word ‘evil’ to describe Hezbollah’s ideology without risking hysterical reactions from parts of the media. However, let’s be clear about this, Hezbollah is an organisation that engages in suicide bombings against non combatants including women and children, uses Lebanese civilians as human shields and literally seeks to annihilate a democratic state. Make no mistake, open war will break out again between Hezbollah and Israel, whenever Hezbollah’s Iranian masters decide is a politically opportune time for them
When it does, given David Miliband’s past record, I really wonder how he will respond. Will he again make the mistake of seeking to treat Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation as an equal party with Israel, a free democratic state? Will he recognise that Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah cannot be solved simply by getting people together to understand each other’s perspectives, That simply won’t work when one side is ideologically committed to destroying another country as Hezbollah is. Recognising this is actually the first step to dealing with it. There can be no appeasement, Hezbollah cannot be treated as an equal of Israel.
In Ian Curteis’ outstanding production The Falkland’s Play, which the BBC apparently still regards as too pro Conservative to be shown on its main TV channels, the US mediation team tell the British government that they ‘have to treat both Britain and Argentina as equals’. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with forthright clarity responds ‘how dare you treat us as equals, Argentina is the aggressor, a third rate serial abuser of human rights, who kill their own people…’
Let’s hope the Labour government not only learn some lessons from Thatcher, but also have a better grasp on Hezbollah’s intentions this time than they did in 2006. Because failure to do so may actually cost many, many more lives in the long term, both Lebanese and Israeli, than any temporary ceasefire saves. Appeasement always brings far greater tragedy and human suffering in the long term than any short-term gains.
