“We may not shoot you today as long as you keep giving us what we want”
Posted by editor-at-large on 18 July 2008 at 7:12 pm UTC
Israel’s Arutz Sheva reported Monday:
“… Hizbullah is preparing to arm its rockets with chemical warheads and to build extensive fortifications. Defense Minister Ehud Barak blames the Syrians, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asks the United Nations to do something.
“’[UN Security Council] Resolution 1701 is being violated. Hizbullah continues to get stronger with the ongoing and intimate assistance of the Syrians,’ according to Defense Minister Barak. Speaking at a meeting of the Labor party’s Knesset representatives on Monday, Barak said, ‘The delicate balance that exists on the northern border should not be violated on the two-year anniversary of the Second Lebanon War. We should make an explicit statement: Resolution 1701 did not work, it is not working, and all indications are that it will not work in the future. It is a failure.’
“Adding further weight to Defense Minister Barak’s declaration is an article in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyasa, which reported Monday that Hizbullah has acquired chemicals needed to make weapons such as nerve gas or mustard gas from North Korean suppliers. The Lebanese terrorist organization is allegedly preparing to arm its Katyusha rockets with such chemical warheads. Echoing Barak’s claims, the Kuwaiti paper also stated that the assistance of Syria and Iran has been crucial in Hizbullah’s efforts to acquire chemical weapons capabilities. The Al-Siyasa report was based on intelligence provided to the Kuwaiti paper by Syrian opposition figures in the United States. …”
The report continues with a discussion of Hezbollah’s rebuilding and new construction of underground bunkers, the shipping of heavy construction material – and the smuggling of weapons — to Hezbollah-controlled areas in south Lebanon, as well as the failure of UN forces to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for “a buffer zone free of ‘any armed personnel’ — both Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops — between the United Nations-drawn Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River.”
No mention, however, of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which “calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias,” but has never been enforced as evidenced by the armed terrorist-militias — like Hezbollah, Amal, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and other allied militias – who launched or quickly joined the terror-offensive against the Lebanese government and citizenry in May.
As I said in an email to colleagues today, we’ve got to shut Hezbollah down on every front because this group – which is perhaps the world’s largest terrorist army (certainly a proxy arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) — is increasingly trying to work its way into some sort of mainstream acceptance in Lebanon … and in the eyes of the world.
The Lebanese government is granting Hezbollah all sorts of concessions (and getting nothing in return from Hezbollah except a promise that “We may not shoot you today as long as you keep giving us what we want.”). America and the greater West have our heads in the sand. Most Americans are clueless as to what is actually happening or what any of it means. The UN is impotent. And the Lebanese Army and the Interior Security Forces (national police) are simply not strong enough to thwart anything Hezbollah is doing.
Meanwhile, Iran is pouring money and weapons into the program, and the program is extending its reach on nearly every continent in the world.
Read related updates here and here.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com.
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