Lebanon's 'Soldiers of Virtue'

WSJ ^ | July 23, 2008

[nuconvert]

Lebanon's 'Soldiers of Virtue'

By FOUAD AJAMI

July 23, 2008

There have been a dozen prisoner exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel since the early 1990s, but Samir Kuntar was always a case apart. In 1979 Kuntar and his companions killed a policeman, kidnapped a young father, Danny Haran, and killed him in front of his 4-year-old daughter. Then Kuntar turned to the child and crushed her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle. In the mayhem, Danny Haran's wife, Smadar, hiding in her home, accidentally smothered to death the couple's 2-year-old daughter.

Now Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has finally got his way. Last week, Israel handed over Kuntar in return for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. They returned to Israel in black coffins.

This prisoner swap will serve Hezbollah's purposes in the interminable struggles within Lebanon. Trumpets and drums greeted Kuntar's release. Breathless pollsters now tell us that Nasrallah, a turbaned Shiite and a child of poverty, is the most admired hero of the "Arab street." This is so, we are told, even in Sunni Arab lands otherwise given to animus toward Shiites.

But Nasrallah had been here before. Two summers ago, he triggered a terrible war across the Lebanon-Israel frontier, with a toll of 1,200 Lebanese deaths (160 Israelis also perished in that senseless summer) and no less than $5 billion in damages to Lebanon's economy. That war was sold to the gullible as a "divine victory" -- the first Arab victory against Israel's might.

Some expected that Hezbollah would lay down its arms and that the Lebanese, free of Syrian captivity, would return their country to a modicum of order and normalcy. Those hopes were in vain. In the last two years,

[nuconvert]

“”We lived in a world where we believed that our enemy was exactly like us,” Ofer Regev said in a eulogy for his fallen brother. “We thought we could speak to people who also wanted to raise a child, grow a flower, love a girl, exactly like us. But the enemy proved that it is not exactly like us. And still, we will not stop trying.””

[Little Ray]

And THAT is why Israel will eventually lose. Because their enemies are inhuman in their hate, and people like Ofer Regev keep trying to negotiate with them as if they were.

[forkinsocket]

And still, we will not stop trying.

Ya rab this is too much. Israel is truly doomed if we can't get rid of this sick mentality soon.

[KampfgruppeZ]

And THAT is why Israel will eventually lose. Because their enemies are inhuman in their hate, and people like Ofer Regev keep trying to negotiate with them as if they were.

Not so fast. Have you read Ezekiel 38?

Those blood thirsty muzzy goons get messed up real bad!

GOD will not allow Israel to be taken down....not because Israel is so good but because GOD said once they are back in the land they will never again be removed.

[Little Ray]

Then it will God’s doing and not Israel’s.
Then again, it always is...