It seems that the Israelis have finally had enough. Even after they gave up Gaza to appease the Palestinians, with IDF troops herding their own countrymen out of their homes at gunpoint, the terrorist attacks on innocent men, women and children continued. Suicide bombers and nightly rocket attacks launched from Gaza and Lebanon proved that appeasement just doesn't work; rewarding bad behavior only leads to more bad behavior. When members of Hamas abducted a young ISF soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, via a tunnel dug from ther Palestinian Authority, Israel ran out of patience.
When given a choice, the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to lead them, despite (or due to) the fact that the Hamas "platform" consisted mainly of calling for Israel's destruction. Meanwhile, the new prime minister of Lebanon appointed a Hezbollah member to a cabinet post. Members of that terrorist organisation also hold elected positions in the Lebanese government. Hamas and Hezbollah had no intention of coming to an agreement with Israel, however. People don't blow themselves up or target innocents in order to reach a compromise.
So the Palestinians and Lebanese chose the leadership most likely to pick a fight with Israel... and a fight is what they got. When Israeli troops moved into Gaza carrying plenty of supplies on their mission to free Shalit, it was apparent that Israel had lost all hope of reaching a state of peaceful coexistence with terrorists.
Predictably, the United Nations met to discuss how best to reprimand Israel for defending itself. The UN's Human Rights Council, again predictably, condemned Israel for taking out bridges and power plants in Gaza, and approved a resolution demanding Israel's immediate withdrawal. The US promptly vetoed that resolution. President Bush affirmed that Israel has the right to protect itself from terrorists.
Even more predictably, Hamas and Hezbollah tried to intimidate Israel into withdrawing by firing more rockets, kidnapping more Israelis (soldiers and civilians), and even killing a few. The Israelis long ago passed the point where they can be intimidated into submission, either by terrorist attacks or terrorist supporters at the United Nations. They merely expanded the scope of the war.
Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert reacted to Hezbollah's incursion into Israel and the attack on IDF troops by considering it an act of war by Lebanon, from which the attack was launched. "Israel's response will be restrained but very, very, very painful," Olmert said. Israeli forces quickly imposed a blockade and attacked sites in Lebanon, concentrating on areas controlled by Hezbollah, but including the Beirut airport and a Lebanese Air Army base. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued launching rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
In September 2004, the UN issued resolution 1559, which stated that Hezbollah must be disarmed, and that Lebanese military forces should patrol the southern border to prevent terrorist attacks on Israel. The Lebanese government is either unable or unwilling to accomplish those tasks. Hezbollah controls the southern half of the country and is in turn controlled from Syria. Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, enjoys the protection and patronage of Syrian president Bashir Assad. But all the trails of terror that run through Syria lead to Iran, in the end. Israel should have little trouble supressing terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon, but no one can be safe while Syria and Iran support terrorist groups.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned of a "fierce response" should Israel attack Syria. Any large-scale attack from Iran that crosses Iraq in some way would surely be treated as an unfriendly act by the Iraqi government... and by the US. If Iran makes a move, it's almost certain that both Israeli and American forces would strike at Iran. That country may already be involved in a more clandestine fashion, however -- two medium-range Iranian missiles that struck Haifa, out of range of Hezbollah's usual Katyusha rockets, are believed by some Israeli officials to have been launched by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard working with Hezbollah.
Israel was right to hold the Palestinian government and Lebanon accountable for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah in their areas, even more so since the terrorist groups are part of those governments. No country can sit by and endure constant attacks launched from within the border of another that does nothing to stop them. How long would we sit still if a terrorist group was launching daily rocket attacks into Detroit or Buffalo from across the Canadian border, and Canada did nothing at all to prevent them?
If the nations that support Hamas and Hezbollah don't find some way to appease Israel soon, the Israelis will be knocking on the door of Assad's summer palace, instead of merely sending fighters to fly over it. It's useless to keep pretending that terrorist groups are separate from the nations that train, harbor, supply and use them in order to conceal their own involvement in attacks. The masks in Middle East politics are coming off at last... and so are the gloves.
Ready or not, the big war for the Middle East seems about to begin. Constant terrorist attacks have driven Israel to the point where they have nothing left to lose. Could neighboring countries possibly hate them any more, or launch more terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, than they already do? Could the United Nations possibly condemn them any more than they do now? Israel has nothing to gain by inaction.
Whatever else happens, I doubt the Israelis will make the mistake of surrendering precious land for promises of peace again anytime soon, even if they are convinced to stop short of invading Syria. Terrorist sympathisers around the world might as well forget about Gaza, and probably half of Lebanon, for the foreseeable future.
