Last week a number of bloggers noted an article about Hezbollah, in which one of the terror group’s leaders acknowledged that there’s no difference between its “political” and “military” wings.
On one point, the United States agrees with Hezbollah’s No. 2 leader, Naim Qassem, and not such allies as Britain.
Neither Qassem nor Washington distinguish between the Shiite militant group’s political wing, which has members serving in the Lebanese Cabinet and parliament, and its military wing, preparing for the next round of battle against Israel. “Hezbollah has a single leadership,” said the 57-year-old cleric in a rare interview with an American reporter recently.
“All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership,” he said. “The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel.”
Media Backspin digs up a related, old Tony Blankley column:
. . . Al Capone set up soup kitchens during the Depression. And the Nazis provided social services to poor and starving Germans in the 1920s and early ’30s. But they both kept killing until, respectively, the FBI and the Allies put them both out of business.
Hezbollah is certainly a ruthless band of cutthroats, but there is no evidence that they are insincere in their beliefs, or that they are open to changing their minds and joining the Women’s League of Voters. If, at their heart, they oppose our objectives, then either they have to be defeated or we do.
Any political party — be it Sinn Fein, Hezbollah, Hamas or the Nazis — that has its own private army is inherently not a democratic institution. Nor is it likely to evolve into one if it holds undemocratic ideas.
Given what Great Britain did and what Europe is doing in legitimizing Hezbollah, isn’t this kind of important? Wouldn’t a responsible Western press pick up on something like this? It isn’t as if the LA Times is a tiny newspaper. The story’s been out for more than a day.
don’t expect that to stop any European ‘peace activists’ from idolizing Hezbullah.
Barry Rubin writes that what applies to Hezbollah, applies just as much to Hamas!
Naturally, I was censorious when the UK government said it was going to meet with the political wing of Hizballah. But they’ve done even worse now with Hamas. All the main contacts with that organization so far are with Khalid Mashal who is:
1. The closest thing the organization–“political” and “military” wings–have to an overall leader. It’s like meeting with Usama bin Ladin on the pretext of engaging with the al-Qaida “political wing.”
2. He is the most hard-line leader of the group. This is not to say that the others are great moderates but if you are going to pretend to be encouraging the less genocidal (and the difference is minimal) why empower the worst of them?
One more proof that the engagement racket is precisely that.
But this isn’t really about moderating fanatics, is it? Declaring Hamas and Hezbollah “moderate” won’t change what they’re about. But it will give some high minded progressives the satisfaction of refusing to be limited by labels. And of course, politically they help terrorists become more respectable without changing their tactics.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
