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April 15, 2007
“The Western world should either defend us, or change its name.”
My friend Noah Pollak has a fascinating article in the new issue of Azure recounting his recent trip to Lebanon, where he observed both hopes for democracy and Hezbollah's determination to stop it. More than anything else, what comes out of his observations is a feeling of frustrated anger at the West's failure to stand up for Lebanon's liberal reformers and against their enemies, who are our enemies. Nancy Pelosi should be in Beirut expressing solidarity for the Cedar Revolution, not making nice with the man who wants to destroy it. Unfortunately, she hates her president and her country far more than she hates murderous tyranny. Ultimately, the death of civic courage in the West does not only endanger the West itself, it endangers the world entire.
Noah expresses this terrible conundrum eloquently in his observations of Bint Jibeil, which became a symbol of Israeli ruthlessness for its Western detractors.
[Bint Jbeil] looked like Dresden. For Westerners who think that the only acceptable reaction to such a scene is horror and regret, the proper emotion upon arriving in the center of Bint Jbeil would have been to recoil in dismay, to be taken aback by the sheer magnitude of violence that had been delivered, to solemnly reflect on the senselessness of it all. But despite sorrow at the loss of innocent life, I did not feel fear or repulsion. It was something much closer to awe: At the devastation, and at the feeling that the piles of rubble and crumbling Party of God buildings were in large part monuments to Israel’s refusal to let Hezbollah’s July provocation go unanswered. I understood that every day since the war, and for many months to come, Hezbollah’s prideful warriors would be surrounded by this destruction, would hear the rubble crunching under their feet as they walked, would taste the dust that filled their mouths as they breathed. I wished that every Israeli could experience the feeling that had come over me; from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it looked as if the war had ended ambiguously. Not in Bint Jbeil.War is hell, no one who lives in Israel would ever deny this. But we should never forget that it is also hell for our enemies, and when our enemies are as evil as Islamic totalitarianism, the measure of the hell we provide them may just be the measure of our own survival.
Benjamin | 04/15/07 at 05:17 PM | Categories: WWIV
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Comments
One could wish that Ms. Pelosi had stayed in Syria !!
Paul | April 15, 2007 07:44 PM
Remember Iraq war 2?
everybody dumps on the west for fighting this war, now you want us in where, Darfur? Lebanon?
I feel that any country that wishes the west wou;ld help them kindly look at themselves for their salvation.
We, the west well our give a damn is busted.
Barry | April 18, 2007 02:03 PM
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