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Iran And Proxies Sabotage Peace

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By PAUL HIRSCHSON

Special To The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 7, 2009

Updated: 03/07/2009 12:55 am

Here we go again. Following Israel's war with Hizballah in 2006 in Lebanon, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said, to much mockery in the Arab world, that had he known Israel would respond so decisively Hizballah would never have initiated hostilities.

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram quoted Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshal last week as saying his Islamist group was surprised by the force Israel used against it in the Gaza Strip.

Meshal, speaking at an Arab conference on Gaza in the Qatari capital Doha, reportedly told a closed forum that Hamas had believed that Israel's 22-day campaign against it would last no longer than three days.

"We didn't expect the crimes (his wording) that were committed against our citizens, the residents of Gaza," Al-Ahram quoted the Damascus-based Meshal as saying.

According to Al-Ahram, Meshal said there were meant to be massive protests in front of Egyptian embassies across the Arab world, to pressure Cairo into opening its border crossing with Gaza. "We had relied on the Arab street," Meshal is quoted as saying.

These protests never took place.

There is something wrong with this picture. Iran and its proxies, Hizballah and Hamas, obviously believe Israel's search for peace is evidence of weakness, of Israel's unwillingness and inability to defend itself.

Thus was nurtured the idea that it is OK to terrorize Israeli civilians - 8,000 missiles, mortars and rockets launched, indiscriminately, into civilian centers in southern Israel over a period of eight years in the knowledge that they can act with impunity.

Well it is not OK. It is not OK to send your children into Israel to catch a bus or to go to a restaurant, strapped with explosives around their waists, in order to blow themselves up and kill whoever happens to be going to work on that bus or enjoying coffee in that restaurant.

It is not acceptable to fire missiles on the elderly, the infirm and onto children. It is not acceptable to do so to healthy adults either, just because they happen to be alive and Israeli.

When Hamas chooses to adopt certain policies they come with responsibilities and consequences. Don't now come and say that you were surprised. Sorry, it's simply pathetic.

What would the United States do were Cuba to launch one missile on Miami?

We may live by different codes, but let us not pretend that either side is led by fools. Every minute that went by during the 22 days of fighting was another minute Iran lost credibility in the eyes of its own constituents. They made a promise, a guarantee, that Israel would be eradicated.

Iran encouraged, some would argue instructed, Hamas to undertake a course of action which has brought nothing but hardship to the Palestinian people. We should all hope that this and Hamas' abhorrent choice of human shields as a strategic policy will result in accountability from their constituents, the Palestinian people.

Paul Hirschson is deputy consul general of Israel.

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