Sympathy for the Devil

David Horowitz, on why Lebanon is not innocent:

The Lebanese army has not lifted a finger to obstruct Hezbollah's aggression, but the Lebanese prime minister has been out front in attacking Israel. Who, watching the Lebanese interviewed by reporters during the war — including the Lebanese Americans evacuated to safety — can doubt that their hatred is for Jews and not for the Islamic killers of both the Jews and the Lebanese.


The last stand of Western imperialism is the patronizing attitude displayed by Western radicals and liberals toward Third World Muslims and Arabs. If Americans taught their children to murder Muslims as a quick pass to heaven, the left would regard this as a crime against humanity. But if Palestinians are the perpetrators of such crimes and Jews are the targets, it's a different story. In this case terror is the only means (and therefore the understandable means) of a "desperate" people. Jews who have been told by the leader of Iran that their extinction is imminent of course aren't desperate.


Hassan Nasrallah is not a victim, let alone a helpless one; nor is he stupid, or unaware of what he is doing. He knows just what his agenda is. "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel" he told a crowd of supporters. "I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood." His supporters responded with chants of "Death to Israel, death to America." Counseling the Israelis to lay down their arms in the face of these threats and negotiate with a movement that seeks their destruction is a not so surreptitious support for the malignant agendas themselves.


Making excuses for Lebanese appeasement of these agendas while directing moral outrage against the intended victims repeats a familiar pattern among leftist critics of America and Israel. In weighing in on the frontline battles against the terrorists in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq, critics attribute civilian casualties not to the terrorists but to their opponents; liberation and self-defense are denounced as "occupation." This is not even moral equivalence; it is sympathy for the devil.