The 'new' Lebanon: It's Hezbullah

Shavua tov - a good week to everyone.

The JPost editorial in Friday's paper said what I thought should be obvious to everyone who watched the disgusting display in Beirut this past week. But since I saw a post on a right wing blog (which I can no longer find) that indicated that the Lebanese leadership was 'forced' to be there, I thought the Post's editorial bore highlighting.

For those who are not sure what I mean, look at the picture below. In the picture, mass murderer Samir Kuntar is shaking hands with Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman as Parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (furthest right) look on. The picture was taken during the 'ceremony' at Beirut Airport that celebrated Kuntar's release.

Here's what the JPost had to say about it.

A VITAL lesson Israeli strategists must draw from this nauseating display of perverted unity: Lebanon and Hizbullah are one. If, heaven forbid, there is another war, the IDF must wage it with ferocity - not on Hizbullah's terms, but across the Lebanese battlefield.

Ever since the June 1982 Lebanon War, the Israeli military has allowed itself to be hamstrung in targeting Lebanon. International media coverage of that war, often manipulative and tendentious, along with Western - particularly US - opposition to striking at the country's infrastructure, made vanquishing our enemies impossible.

Even among Israelis there was the lingering sense that Lebanon was essentially a peace-loving society taken hostage by violent, unrepresentative factions.

Ultimately, that assessment reigned supreme, inhibiting the IDF from finishing Yasser Arafat off. Instead the PLO was merely ousted from its Beirut and southern Lebanon strongholds and exiled to Tunisia.

But that war's unintended consequences led to an even worse outcome: Iranian-backed Shi'ite Islamism and the rise of Hizbullah.

NOW THAT Lebanon and Hizbullah have apparently melded, the self-defeating legacy of IDF inhibition must end. At the start of the Second Lebanon War, former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz warned bombastically that Israel would "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years" if Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were not returned.

No one took him seriously - Israel would never punish "good Lebanon" for the crimes of "bad Hizbullah." The IAF limited itself to mostly targeting Islamist strongholds. But if Lebanon and Hizbullah are now one, Israel needs a radically revised strategy for winning a war on Lebanese soil.

Artificial distinctions between "Lebanese" and "Hizbullah" targets were swept away by Wednesday's display of barbaric unity. Lebanon was revealed in its hostile unanimity. If new conflict comes, Israel must internalize that unanimity of hate-filled purpose, and defeat it decisively.

I could not agree more. Lebanon is Hezbullah and Hezbullah is Lebanon. In the next war - and there will be a next war - we must treat Lebanon like the enemy it has become.

Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.