Justus For All

This Detroit News editorial is pretty similar to what I have been saying about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.  One part toward the end is interesting to think about though:

Every additional day Israel is given to degrade Hezbollah’s military capacity gives the eventual peacekeeping effort a greater chance of working and increases enthusiasm for the task.

While I think that it true to an extent, there is a downside there as well (beyond the obvious loss of life that war entails.)  While every day degrades Hezbollah’s military strength, it is also increasing Hezbollah’s political strength, and to an extent the political strength of other Muslim radicals.  Both by standing up to, and by being a victim of Israel, Hezbollah is winning at lot of admirers in the Muslim world.

Part of this is because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, Israel made a strategic blunder in not focusing on differentiating Hezbollah from Lebanon.  Equally important though, is the flat out ugly truth that anti-Semitism is rampant in the Arab world, and if Jews are on one side, a lot of people there are going to cheer the other side regardless of anything else.  Hopefully this will change someday, but for now that is the reality of the situation.

I can’t say for sure if Israel’s continuing operations are a net positive or a net negative.  Certainly if Hezbollah can be reduced enough militarily it will make options availible for the future that will not exist otherwise.   Being aware though that the military scope is not the only dimension that we need to concern ourselves with is quite important though.