As shown in this series, Hezbollah is not a ‘militia,’ as much of the media would have you believe: it is an antisemitic terrorist army of extermination.[1] A year ago exactly, the Philadelphia Inquirer explained the tremendous symbolic importance that Hezbollah has for the terrorist enemies of Israel:

“Hezbollah now controls the south [of Lebanon]. It is viewed throughout the region as the one armed Arab group that has defeated Israel by suicide bombers and guns [because Hezbollah claims that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 chased out by Hezbollah’s terrorism].”[2]

Consistent with this, the same article explained that “the United States labels Hezbollah a terrorist organization.” This -- in combination with the oft-repeated US claim to love and support Israel -- leads some to conclude that the United States ruling elite must be opposed to Hezbollah. However, government officials routinely conceal the truth with public statements -- we all know this. Therefore, the public statements of government officials are not a reliable guide for the social scientist.

Happily, the social scientist can examine the foreign policy behaviors of states, and in these behaviors the ruling elites that control state policy reveal their true values and goals. To understand the US ruling elite’s real attitudes toward both Israel and Hezbollah, then, let us first take a look at how US officials have reacted to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the past, and then at how they are reacting this time.

The history
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A decade ago exactly, in 1996, Hezbollah escalated dramatically its rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. When Israel retaliated, there were casualties, including civilians at a UN base in Qana, in southern Lebanon. Consistent with the general anti-Israeli thrust of the media, Israel rather than Hezbollah was blamed for this, even though 1) it was Hezbollah that attacked first; 2) it is Hezbollah that as a matter of principle targets civilians when it attacks; and 3) Hezbollah had fired its rockets against Israeli civilians from “a position close to the UN post, thus drawing the errant Israeli artillery fire” to the UN base.[3]

An ally of Israel would have blamed the terrorists who endanger both the civilians they attack and the civilians they hide among. Instead, the US used the worldwide diplomatic attack on Israel in order to produce a state of affairs that defies belief:

“For 10 days, Warren Christopher, then the secretary of state, bounced between Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem until he finally was able to get the 1996 cease-fire arrangement that restricted Israel and Hezbollah to fighting each other without terrorizing civilian populations.”[4]

In other words, a decade ago, the United States went out of its way 1) to restrain Israel from crossing over and destroying Hezbollah; and 2) to guarantee Hezbollah’s ability to attack Israel, even though Hezbollah’s ideology, as HIR has shown, is simply to destroy the Jewish state through genocide![5]

A few days ago (14 July), in an article entitled “U.S. Urges Restraint By Israel,” the Washington Post explained the US’s initial reaction to the conflict:

“President Bush and his top diplomats scrambled Thursday night to quell spiraling violence in the Middle East and protect the new democratic government in Lebanon as Israeli forces escalated their strikes.

Bush initially told reporters that ‘Israel has a right to defend herself,’ qualifying the statement only with a call to avoid toppling the Lebanese government, which he deems a model for the region.

But as fighting worsened, the White House grew increasingly anxious and issued a late-night appeal to Israel. ‘We just continue to ask that the Israelis exercise restraint, be concerned about civilian casualties, be concerned of course about civilian infrastructure,’ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at a hastily called news conference here, 10 hours after Bush’s original comments.”[6]

The United States initial reaction is notable for what it did not contain. President Bush and Condoleezza Rice did not say:

“First, Israel is fighting a terrorist army of extermination; second, Israel is our ally; and third, the US is also fighting a war on terror. So, consistent with our enforcement of regime change in Iraq on the grounds that it was a dangerous terrorist state, we support our Israeli allies in the effort to defeat the antisemitic terrorists who have attacked them and to defeat also those who harbor them.”

Making this kind of statement would have been consistent with the US’s public stance that it is supposedly fighting a war on Islamist terror, and also with its public claim to support Israel. But what Bush and Rice did is rather different. First, Bush, with imperial condescension, granted Israel the right to defend itself and then, according to the Washington Post, Bush and Rice “scrambled ...[to]... quell spiraling violence in the Middle East and protect the new democratic government in Lebanon.”

Now, as shown in this series, the ‘government’ in Lebanon is not democratic at all (this is how the Washington Post lies to you); it is not even a real government but a puppet of Syria.[7] According to the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, US officials don’t want us to notice this:

“...successive American administrations have been reluctant to openly push for an end to Syrian protection of Hezbollah. In fact, the United States has been unwilling even to publicly request that the Syrians end this protection. ...[there is a] long-standing American policy of avoiding public statements which mention or suggest that Syria controls Lebanese policy decisions.”[8]

Of course, in the context of this conflict they have come out and said it. But why didn't US officials want us to notice this? Don’t they say in public that they are enemies of Syria? They do. Shouldn’t they be exposing their enemies when they do things that endanger an ally? They should. So perhaps the picture of the US as supposedly joined at the hip with Israel against Syria is not the right model of geopolitical alliances. But if US officials have been covering up for Syria’s behaviors in Lebanon, what have they been covering up? What is Syria doing to Lebanon?

As discussed earlier in this series, Hezbollah is transforming Lebanon into an Iranian-style theocratic state, because this is what Hezbollah likes, and Iran is funding it.[9] It is Syria that is masterminding the transformation because Sryia owns Lebanon, and Syria is also Hezbollah’s master.[10] In this Syria is assisted by the fact that there are lots of Shiites in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah’s mass base is among the Shiites. An article in the St. Petersburg Times explains,

“[Hezbollah] now has 14 seats in Lebanon’s Parliament and, along with Amal, another Shiite party, controls about a third of the Cabinet.

Thus, part of the reason Lebanon’s government will find it difficult to disarm Hezbollah is that Hezbollah is a substantial part of the [Lebanese] government.”[11]

So what Syria is doing to Lebanon is turn it into a Hezbollah state. A Hezbollah state is Mordor: a country dedicated from head to toes to the destruction, via genocide, of the Jewish state. Given that the Lebanese army, as shown in this series, supports the Hezbollah attacks on Israel, the transformation would appear to be nearly complete.[12]

This is what US officials don’t want us to understand. In particular because, as we’ve also seen, the “Lebanese government [is one that George Bush] deems a model for the region.”

The Hezbollification of Lebanon is the US model for the Arab region.

What does this mean? Given that Hezbollah subordinates all of its political activities towards achieving the extermination of the Jewish people, it means that Bush wants the Arab states around Israel transformed into full-time factories for the production of eager Jew-killers.

Guess who agrees with the US? The 'Palestinian' terrorists:

“Among Palestinian militants, Hezbollah is increasingly seen as a model for resisting Israeli occupation. The Palestinian militant group Hamas, an offshoot of the Sunni Islamic organization the Muslim Brotherhood, has set aside religious differences to support Hezbollah's anti-Israel tactics.”[12a]

Taking everything together, then, the initial US reaction to the current conflict may be characterized as follows:

US officials appeared concerned that some terrorists went too far too soon, forcing an Israeli reaction that threatens the steady growth in Lebanon of a terrorist-Islamist state dedicated to the destruction of Israel through genocide. If the US ruling elite quickly grew “increasingly anxious,” as reported, this is probably because much is at stake, given that the US government considers the Hezbollizing Lebanese government a model for the Arab region.

The initial US reaction to the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is therefore consistent with earlier US policy towards the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, and consistent also with the entire history of US foreign policy toward the Jewish people and state.[13]

Trying to find the right thing to say
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Just two days later, the same Washington Post was reporting a somewhat different picture. US officials now appeared to be calling for total defeat of the terrorists:

“Israel, with U.S. support, intends to resist calls for a cease-fire and continue a longer-term strategy of punishing Hezbollah... according to senior Israeli and U.S. officials.”[14]

And yet the same article reported that the White House was still calling on Israel to exercise “restraint”:

“...White House officials said Friday that Bush has called on Israel to limit civilian casualties and avoid toppling the Lebanese government but has not pressured Israel to stop its military action. ‘He believes that the Israelis have a right to protect themselves,’ spokesman Tony Snow said in St. Petersburg, where Bush is attending the Group of Eight summit. ‘The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel.’”

So, two days later, the US ruling elite was still trying to save, for the long term, Syria’s Hezbollification of the Lebanese state, but the call for restraint now came with the confusingly simultaneous tough stance of support for Israel.

The next day, the same divided stance:

“Bush defended Israel while calling for restraint. ‘Our message to Israel is: Look, defend yourself, but as you do so, be mindful of the consequences,’ he said. Bush placed most of the blame for the outbreak of violence on Hezbollah and the militant arm of Hamas, and on what he called their backers in Iran and Syria. He said terrorists are trying to wreck a peace process designed to forge a Palestinian state.”[15]

A cynic could read Bush’s statement of support as an oblique threat that Israel should not be defending itself too vigorously: “defend yourself, but...be mindful of the consequences.”

It appears that US officials really didn’t want this particular conflict to escalate. Bush is not only worried that the Hezbollification of Lebanon is in trouble, but that the Oslo ‘peace’ process has been put at risk. One thing is consistent with the other. The Hezbollification of Lebanon that Bush is rushing to protect is precisely what the PLO -- which in the ‘peace’ process is supposed to achieve total control over the West Bank after the Jews are cleansed from it -- has been doing to the West Bank: it has been Hezbollizing it: it is turning everybody into a Jew-killer, and it is making Jew-killing the central organizing principle of West Bank ‘civilization.’ (Israelis who get lost in the West Bank are literally torn limb from limb.[16])

The next day, 18 July, the Ottawa Citizen explained that:

“The American president is no longer hit-listing axes of evil, no longer issuing ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ threats, no longer pre-emptively invading countries that give him the heebie-jeebies. He's still exercising the overwhelming influence and leverage of the United States, he’s just doing it by doing as little as possible.”[17]

Strange behavior for an ally of Israel, when that ally is under terrorist attack... But there was nevertheless some tough pro-Israeli cheap talk and the Ottawa Citizen offered a translation of it for its readers:

“Translation: ‘We don’t want a cease-fire. We don’t want an international stability force. We’re letting Israel bomb the #$%* out of Lebanon because we’re hoping it will wipe out Hezbollah once and for all, kneecap Iran and Syria in the process and P.S., it’s quicker than talking.’”[18]

Except that the very same day an open microphone caught Bush complaining in a private remark to Blair that “what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over,”[18a] which again suggests that US officials are not happy with the threat to the Hezbollification of Lebanon, even as they make lukewarm public statements of support for Israel.

The day after, 19 July, the Wall Street Journal reported an official position that contradicted what the open mike had caught:

“Bush administration and Sec of State Rice have no intention of launching diplomacy to end current fighting between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel.”[19]

Finding the solution?
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On 20 July the US ruling elite appears to have found the solution. The Los Angeles Times explains:

“Although wary of multinational peacekeeping operations, the Bush administration is working with allies to find a way to insert a robust military force and a civilian international presence in Lebanon to strengthen the frail government and break the grip of Hezbollah, U.S. and foreign diplomats say.

The peacekeepers would be positioned along Lebanon’s southern border in an effort to prevent future Hezbollah attacks on Israel, whereas the civilian officials would be scattered elsewhere in the Arab country, including at key entry points, to halt the flow of military equipment from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah, the officials say.”[20]

That’s what they say. What will happen is that the multinational force on the Israel-Lebanon border will make it impossible in the future for Israel to prevent the Hezbollification of Lebanon. Once that is accomplished, the multinational force will leave and Israel will be destroyed. This is not a speculation: this is how NATO interventions to ‘ameliorate conflict’ work, and this sort of thing was used already against Yugoslavia. As HIR has argued, if you want to see where Israel is headed, then take a look at what NATO has done to Kosovo.[21]

And get ready, because the Los Angeles Times explains that

“the international peacekeeping effort has become the focal point of American diplomacy”

and also that,

“Diplomats say they believe that there is significant support among some European and Arab governments for mobilizing a strong international presence in Lebanon to help end a confrontation that otherwise could bleed the region.”

The corrupted Israeli government is already on board, according to the same newspaper:

“Israel, often wary of allowing others a role in matters affecting its security, thinks the peacekeeping mission could work. Though some officials at first criticized the idea, the government now views it as ‘something we’ll support,’ said one Israeli official who requested anonymity when discussing the pending diplomatic efforts.”

And everybody is rushing to get this done before the Israeli public can react against it:

“U.N. envoys Wednesday urged the international community to decide on a multinational buffer force quickly.

‘We are in a hurry. It has to happen fast,’ said Terje Roed-Larsen, a veteran Mideast mediator and a special advisor to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was speaking at a news conference in Madrid after visits to Beirut and Jerusalem.”

Who is Terje Roed-Larsen? He and his wife Mona Juul are Norwegian diplomats who were architects of the Oslo ‘peace’ process by means of which Israel is now being destroyed. (I don’t think it is coincidence that the same Norwegian diplomats destroyed Yugoslavia -- these people are tools of NATO, as HIR has shown).[22] Roed-Larsen is now one of the top operatives in charge of the assault against Israel:

“In 1999, [Terje Roed-Larsen] was appointed as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s personal representative to the PLO and Palestine Authority on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He is also the UN Special Coordinator for peace negotiations in the Middle East. He subsequently left the post in 2004 to become President of the International Peace Academy, a NYC-based think tank, and was also designated as UN Special Representative for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Syrian withdrawal of Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.”[23]

So, not only is Roed-Larsen one of the people responsible for the Second Intifada violence of the PLO, by helping bring the terrorist PLO into the Jewish state. He is also responsible for the UN dropping the ball on Resolution 1559 (discussed earlier in this series), which was supposed to remove the terrorist threat to Israel from Lebanon.[24]

It appears that the force Roed-Larsen and other professional destroyers of Israel want to send in will indeed be a NATO force, as the Los Angeles Times explains:

“To be effective, a new force probably would have to be several times as large as the 2,000-troop U.N. contingent -- known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL -- that is in the region, officials said. It also probably would need highly trained soldiers, such as those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO], and rules of engagement that would allow its troops to intervene to stop hostilities, officials said.”[25]

Guess what? The largest troop contingent making up UNIFIL is Norwegian, and the commander is likewise Norwegian.[25a] Given the history of Norwegian 'peace-making' in the Arab-Israeli conflict and elsewhere, and given that UNIFIL appears to sympathize strongly with Hezbollah, this does not look like a coincidence.

The Los Angeles Times explains further that,

“The proposed international force would work side by side with the Lebanese army, which is weaker than Hezbollah and has no presence in the Shiite Muslim-dominated region in southern Lebanon, where the Islamist militant group has its base, officials say.”

Are you following this? The “proposed international force would work side by side with the Lebanese army,” the same Lebanese army that, as HIR has shown, already belongs to Hezbollah.[26]

And everybody is on board, says the Los Angeles Times: “Lebanese officials have given some indication of a willingness to work with Israel to secure their border.”

In all this, nobody is proposing the dismantling of Hezbollah, and that speaks volumes. The Los Angeles Times reports that what they officially want is “to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining long-range missiles that could strike Israel,” and “a halt to arms shipments.” In other words, the multinational force will supposedly prevent Hezbollah from arming itself, but it will not disband it. What will really happen is that Hezbollah will arm itself to the teeth (because the arms come through the north), and Lebanon will be Hezbollized without interference from Israel.

But that is not all. As part of this package the UN will ask Israel to withdraw from the Shebaa Farms in the Golan Heights, says the Los Angeles Times:

“The Yediot Aharonot newspaper [in Israel] reported that other elements of the U.N.-proposed deal included the freeing of captured Israeli soldiers; a cessation of Hezbollah rocket fire at Israel; the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails; and an Israeli withdrawal from the so-called Shabaa Farms, a sliver of disputed land on the slopes of Mt. Hermon, where Syria, Lebanon and Israeli-occupied territory touch.”

As HIR has shown, Shebaa Farms was never part of Lebanon, according to none other than the UN itself! The claim Hezbollah makes for Shebaa Farms is a nonsense claim -- a total phony -- meant to give Syria a foothold on the strategic Golan Heights, which it needs in order to have a better chance of destroying Israel.[27] In addition, hundreds of antisemitic terrorists will be released from Israeli jails. So the ‘solution’ to this conflict will apparently be...a Final Solution.

The Los Angeles Times ends its piece with the following ominous lines:

“In Israel, analysts who have watched the current U.N. force in Lebanon expressed less urgency than U.N. officials about discussing the idea of a new deployment.

They noted that the Israeli government had long complained that the [UN] peacekeepers did little or nothing to prevent Hezbollah from moving about freely and staging attacks.

‘There were incidents in which UNIFIL [the current UN force in Lebanon] was seen as having abetted [Hezbollah] or made it more difficult for Israel to identify a coming attack by what they call the Lebanese resistance,’ said Hillel Frisch, an analyst at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.

Partly as a result of the U.N. force’s history, he said, ‘Israel has major doubts as to whether an international force would have staying power, and at what price.’

An American or NATO component might make such a force more palatable to Israel, he and other analysts said.”

Well, if a NATO intervention is indeed palatable to Israel, then Israel must want to become Kosovo.[28]

Take me to the

in this series.

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Footnotes and Further Reading
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