Glasshouses and Stones

The lid on the tinderbox that is the Middle East has once again come off, and while Israel and Hizbullah trade Hellfire for Katyusha, the world watches with bated breath. The school of thought surrounding this conflict is wide and varied. World opinion is stacked against the Zionist regime. It is said that a picture tells a thousand words, and images from places like Beirut, Qana, Tyre, Sidon, Bint Jbeil and a host of other areas inside Lebanon speak volumes. They are full not of dead Hizbullah fighters but of innocent men, women and children caught up in this macabre cycle of violence. Pictures last weekend from Qana were especially telling. Thirty seven children lost their lives when a Israeli ''precision'' missile smashed into a building in which they were seeking refuge. Contrary to popular belief however, innocent lives are being snuffed out on the other side too. Hizbullah's katyusha rockets are aimed at civilian districts and they too exact a heavy toll; if not on the same scale as that in Lebanon. Moreover, we see that the international community is as divided as ever in its response to the conflict. A problem exacerbated ten-fold by the impotence of the United Nations; which while continuously hissing and baring its fangs, never has a venomous bite.
Many in the West blame Hizbullah for starting the conflict. They claim that Hizbullah's cross border raid which resulted in eight Israeli soldiers being killed and two abducted, was an act of aggression tantamount to war. Israel, they claim, had no choice but to react in order to defend itself. This is a view shared by among others the Brothers Bush, George and Tony (nee Blair.) Their assessment is naive at best. Let's for an instant forget the Palestine issue, forget the Hizbullah fighters languishing in Israeli jails and forget the occasional IDF shelling of southern Lebanese villages prior to this conflict. Let's forget the countless UN (there they are again) resolutions ignored by Israel over the last forty years. Let's forget Israel's continued occupation of the Shebaa Farms and let's agree with the Brothers that Hizbullah did start the war. There is no denying that Hizbullah is a terrorist entity. One of its main aims is to bring about the destruction of the Zionist regime by any means necessary. The face of Hizbullah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and its other leaders have without doubt ''strategically'' placed launchers and fighters in densely populated areas; actions specifically aimed to bring about the kind of results that we are now seeing. But how then does the notion of self-defence equate with Israeli actions thus far? We have witnessed the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and the total disregard for human life...terrorist or otherwise. What I found strange at the start of the war was the haste with which Western powers evacuated their citizens from Lebanon. For all the rhetoric about Hizbullah being a nasty and pugnacious anti-western terrorist regime hell bent on killing innocent civilians, Western tourists were flocking to Lebanon in their droves. It was only when Israeli bombs started dropping yards away from their hotels, that these people and their respective governments were compelled to act decisively. Who is terrorising whom?
So many people in the West are missing a trick in this so-called war on terror. How can we claim to be fighting against an ''axis of evil'' with one hand, when with the other, we dish out more death and destruction than those whom we fight? We lost the moral high ground a long time ago. How dare we condemn Hizbullah for kidnapping two Israeli soldiers when the US, UK and others have conspired to kidnap over four hundred ''enemy combatants'' and keep them in Guantanamo? Why do our leaders think that to die as a victim of terror on a plane or train in London or New York is far worse than dying as ''collateral damage'' in Kabul or Baghdad? We talk about bringing freedom and democracy to failed states yet soldiers flying our flags rape and defile those they were sent to liberate. There has been a clamour here in the UK for Tony to condemn the Israeli actions in Lebanon. You people are asking the impossible. How can he reasonably do so when but three years ago, he and his brother laid waste to tens of thousands of Iraqi lives in a campaign referred to as ''shock and awe'' by the hawkish Donald Rumsfeld? How can he possibly speak out when several British and American soldiers are in the dock for murdering innocent Iraqis in cold blood? How can he voice dissent when unlike Israel, he took us to war on the basis of an imaginary threat? How can he?
I firmly believe in Moses' law of an eye for an eye. Those of you who know me will attest to the fact that I am no ''peacenik". I do not believe that simply altering the way we conduct foreign policy will make our lives safer...we have gone too far past the post for that. It is not our right to self-defence that is in question but rather how it is done and at what cost. I believe that the terrorists must be fought with resolve but more importantly guile. In this modern era of mass communications, the responsible sovereign state must act and more importantly, be seen to act to a higher moral code that the so-called terrorists. We must start walking the walk if we are to convince others lest all our efforts...and lives...be in vain.

Prophet