Monday, July 31, 2006

Hezbollah winning PR War

There are rules of war, and Hezbollah has broken most of them, to their advantage. They initiated the war by crossing the Israeli border, killing eight soldiers, kidnapping two, and firing Katyusha rockets across the border. Katyusha rockets are not a military weapon; they are unguided, and fall indisciminately among the civilian population, killing Israeli Jews and Arabs alike. These rockets are fired from locations populated by civilians--we have seen videos of rockets being fired from within the cities and villages. These attacks have resulted in the nearly complete evacuation of the northern cities of Israel and 1.5 million Isrealis living in bomb shelters. Hezbollah's tactics were planned to ensure that when Israel retaliated, the colateral casualties among the Lebanese civilians would be high.
Hezbollah rejoices at every civilian death at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). They know that Israel views colateral casualties in her endeavors as failure. Both sides know that the civilian casualties can be used by Hezbollah to demonize Israel as an adominable aggressor. It is Hezbollah, not Israel which holds the civilians of Lebanon hostage. By providing relief to those victims of war, Hezbollah can then be seen as the benevolent humanitarians in the war, and will not be seen by the Lebanese as the terrorists they are.
This is how the terrorists win. They know that Israel will be forced by international pressure to stop their military operations against Hezbollah, while they will be able to continue aggression against Israel. They know that, because of the tragic bombing of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, that the world press will see Israel as the aggressor, even though, since 1948, Israel has never initiated force against any other nation or people. Coupled with life-long indoctrination in schools and press--the general populations of the Middle East have been taught by dictators and terror organizations that Israel is evil--the Lebanese now see the high casualty numbers among their population as proof that the existance of Israel is a threat to their own lives.
Now, it isn't only the Arabian and Muslim Lebanese who are against Israel. Samarians, Armenians, and Assyrians, mostly Christian, have joined in the protests and demonstrations against Israel, and have expressed support for the very organization which is responsible for their deaths. Hezbollah knows that its tactics result in universal moral outrage against Israel. In this manner, Hezbollah has achieved victory.

2 comments:

yellowdoggranny said...

it just doesn't matter any more who is wrong who is right, who started what..this has been going on for thousands of years and not going to stop any time soon...this problem between jews and muslims is never going to be fixed...
they cant live side by side in peace...they hate each other and have no desire to change it...i say fuck em all...

RevJim said...

The whole situation is just plain trouble, and it will get worse before it gets better. I would like to say what yellowdog Granny said, but I can't. In the big picture, it affects everybody, if only for the PR spins. There will be no truth from anyone on this subject, because, if reality is based on perception, then so is truth.