http://blogs.news.com.au/dailyteleg...s/the_threat_hezbollah_poses_is_catastrophic/
The threat Hezbollah poses is catastrophic
By Piers Akerman
Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 12:00pm
HEZBOLLAH flags flew at rallies in Sydney and Melbourne last week. Hezbollah’s TV station, Al-Manar, was broadcast into Australia, spreading racist hatred and advocating violence, until its backer went broke last year.
Its headquarters were in southern Beirut until a few days ago, when an Israeli attack forced it to move.
Hezbollah is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the European Union, the US and here.
Any sensible person who has seen what has happened since Hezbollah attacked Israel would realise that this group is solely responsible for the mayhem.
Although some Australians waiting to be evacuated from Beirut are blaming the Australian Government for their plight, surely their outrage would be more effective if it were directed to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, or to his Iranian masters, the real engineers of this catastrophe.
Not to put too fine a point on it, there is a direct line running from Ayatollah Khomeini’s installation of an Islamist theocracy in Iran to Hezbollah today - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are fully and fearfully aware of it.
Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers was not a one-off incident. It was part of a strategy designed to re-ignite the Middle East, and the flag-wavers in Melbourne and Sydney are willing dupes in this operation.
The turbanned team in Tehran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist any more than it recognises the rights of women or the rights of those who don’t follow Islam.
They want to see Israel drawn into a war of attrition which, they hope, will sap the commitment of support it enjoys from liberal democracies such as the US, Britain and Australia.
Unfortunately, they may get their wish if any of the missiles they have given Hezbollah strike the oil refineries surrounding the Israeli port of Haifa. Such a hit would not only create an ecological disaster but would kill tens of thousands of civilians.
Not that Hezbollah has ever shied from murdering civilians - that’s its modus operandi. It’s notan army, it’s a militia.
Its forces don’t wear uniforms or abide by any conventions, Geneva, Paris or Lakemba.
Conventions don’t apply to those who claim to be on a jihad dedicated to furthering Islam, as their banner-bearers in Australia well know.
Hezbollah, like the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, has always used civilians as shields, setting up its arsenals in schools and hospitals, using ambulances to ferry its bombs and ammunition, establishing its headquarters in mosques.
It wants the civilian toll to rise - on both sides of the conflict - but it wants to blame Israel for the bloodshed, and most media organisations are more than happy to play along in this charade.
Ethicists have been excited by the buzzword “proportionality’’, but what proportional force would they suggest is reasonable to respond to an attack by a missile loaded with ball bearings, whose technology has been developed by the Chinese, is manufactured in Iran, armed in Syria and fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon?
The Lebanese government is powerless against Hezbollah’s occupying force, the Syrian government is acquiescent, and the Iranians are the masterminds.
The Chinese see a larger picture entirely; they are addicted to Iranian oil, and are prepared to prostitute themselves to keep it flowing, even to the extent of providing Pakistani-developed nuclear technology.
Hezbollah and Hamas subscribe to the suicide bombers’ mantra: we love death, you love life, therefore we will win.
These groups don’t flinch when they strap suicide vests on to children; indeed, they ensure their love of death and hatred of the West is inculcated from the cradle.
Much of the West has refused torecognise this reality until the terrorists struck at their hearts.
The US, like Australia, is a migrant nation that has for centuries welcomed the contributions of those seeking abetter life. In Britain, a growing Muslim population has been accommodated and provided for.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan has not deserted his customarily craven position, calling on Israel to exercise restraint.
But Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza last year. It provides hospital care for those injured by suicide bombers, be they Palestinians or Israelis, and is unquestionably the injured party in this crisis.
Hezbollah has announced it has chemical and biological weapons, and has shown it can destroy the Haifa refineries.
Should it use this weaponry or devastate Israel’s economy, it’s a near-certainty Israel will attack Tehran’s nuclear program, just as it destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in June, 1981.
In the face of the threat posed by Hezbollah, the world must prepare for this eventuality.
Australians cannot become hostage to this evil. They must understand that in this conflict, Israel is our ally in the pursuit ofliberty and freedom.
The foul malevolence represented by Iran and its murderous accomplices is beyond contemplation.
As lunatic as the Iranians may be, they are matched in their insanity by those among us who carry Hezbollah’s banner here.