By Alan Nathan © 2006 FrontPageMag

UN Secretary General Kafi Annan repeatedly describes as “disproportionate” the Israeli response to the act of war committed by the Hezbollah wing of the Lebanese government; on July 31st in Beirut, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a news conference that Iran is a great people and, “plays a stabilizing role in the region” – despite knowing that Iran is waging a war by proxy on Israel through Hezbollah; and, on August 9th in a Washington Post column, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora demanded that, “Israel be made to respect international humanitarian law, including the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which it has repeatedly and willfully violated.” All this begs a very specific question: How long have these folks been on their pharmacological excursion? Is their addiction in any way correctible? Are there any support groups that can provide a nurturing and non-threatening environment to better facilitate a reentry into the earth’s atmosphere even though it will require the severing of bonds with an ideological mother-ship hell bent on not letting her flock of delusional space munchkins become grounded by the gravity of logic. In short, are they out of their minds?

For the better part of the month long conflict, the European Union and Russia have joined most of the UN in their criticism of Israel’s supposedly disproportionate use of force. When did “proportionality” become the gauge for appropriateness when launching a counter-attack against those who first attack you? Isn’t the more legitimate gauge of appropriateness the response that best ensures the enemy’s inability to replicate those attacks in the future? Would the citizens from any other country not demand the same standard?

Most of the UN member states, including those who sit on its Security Council, are saying that Israel only has the right to defend itself up to the point where it doesn’t harm the fellow citizens of its enemy even though the enemy attacks from behind those same citizens. They’re demanding that Israel subordinate the security of its own citizens to those of its enemies whenever the two are in moral conflict. By consequence of this “catch-22” formula, the UN is essentially mandating that Israel not be allowed to defend itself while rhetorically saying it can.

French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy seems almost theatrically out of touch when characterizing Iran as a stabilizing force to the region while it has in fact been the impetus behind the very blood bath we all want to stop. We know that Muslim nations like Syria and Iran are allied with Hezbollah against Israel as well as with the insurgent and sectarian terrorists in another proxy war against Americans in Iraq.

If a country is waging war against you, does it really matter whether it’s direct or by proxy? Don’t their acts of war entitle both the United States and Israel to counter-attack these countries? How is it that three degrees of separation by name equals three degrees of separation for accountability? This crazy restriction allows these sponsor nations to slaughter with impunity. If they were launching missiles at the US or Israel from their homeland, reciprocating in kind would seem justified by one and all. Why is it when they launch attacks by proxy, we can’t do the same? This is tantamount to not charging people with murder simply because they had it done by contract.

The only suffering Iran and Syria currently sustain is the termination of their weapons (terrorists and suicide bombers). It’s like shooting down incoming rockets with Patriot missiles but then not firing back at the genuine source.

The Lebanese Prime Minister praises Hezbollah while accusing Israel of war crimes and violations of the Geneva Convention. What’s so paradoxical about this is that the Lebanese Government knowingly allowed Hezbollah to violate the Geneva Convention by immersing their rocket and missile launchers in the private homes of densely populated towns and cities. The Convention defines these activities as war crimes because the acts proactively place civilians in harm’s way. Hezbollah has a greater awareness of those jeopardized innocents than does the country that may kill through retaliation.

When the enemy attacks you and then hides behind a wall of innocents for protection, the destruction of that wall is the fault of those hiding behind them, not those completing the task of self-defense. If we don’t accept that logic, by default we’re condoning a template that allows terrorists to attack with a one-way entitlement. Essentially, they would get to repeatedly hit and hide but escape accountability by saying, “You can’t get me, because I’m behind a wall of innocents.”

Once a country is subjected to an unprovoked act of war, the ensuing deaths become the responsibility of the original attacker. You don’t get to drag somebody into your backyard and then whine about their trespassing. You can’t start a fire and then bitch about the flames.