Or at least, his Ba’ath party does. The Dorktator is still too scared to come out of his bunker to see his shadow. (Six more weeks of shelling.)
Syria will support Hezbollah and Lebanon against Israel’s attacks on the country, the ruling Baath Party said on Friday.
“The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes,” said a communique from the party’s national command issued after a meeting.
It said Israel and the United States “are trying to wipe out Arab resistance in every land under occupation” and that President Bashar Assad was aware of the seriousness of the situation in the region.
Okay, so let me get this straight. Lebanon isn’t occupied. Well, it is, but it’s by Syrian sock-puppets and a Syrian- and Iranian-supplied terrorist group.
Gaza isn’t occupied.
On the other hand, Syria probably considers Israel to be occupying Arab land, as the Muslim sense of history seems to always neglect the fact that Jews have been in Israel for 3,500 years.
And on the third hand, if Syria wants to give Israel an excuse to send tanks to Damascus—well, Israel certainly doesn’t want to open a third front. But she won’t ignore an attack by Syria.
I don’t think Syria is going to do more than bluster.
Not that Baby Assad isn’t a despicable piece of scum, but unlike his father he’s a weak despicable piece of scum. Israel needs to go for the head, in Iran. Eliminating Ahmedinejad would send the message that needs to be sent.
The Lebanonese are about to learn a very hard lesson – if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.
The Washington Post has lined up a series of people to respond to Israel’s current situation. Three of them are, unfortunately, total useless “why doesn’t Israel just kneel over and die” liberal crap.
There’s one interesting one by an Israeli reporter, Yossi Melman (here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/yossi_melman/2006/07/post_1.html) that sheds a little light on the way things are on the ground in Israel. Following it is a very insightful comment by an Indian reader:
I have often felt that the Western world fails to appreciate and engage India sufficiently. It’s a huge, vibrant, and diverse DEMOCRACY that suffers from many of the same problems with terrorism that we do… in some ways worse because the terrorists are its next door neighbors. Frankly, I hope we’ll see more cooperation between the U.S., India, and Israel in the future!!!
Shabbat shalom.
Translated we shall send Hezbollah chemical and bio weapons, so thousands may die. Iran is backing us all up, nuke test soon…end
You mention the Arab sense of history, Meryl. This will be a subject for a fuller post one day, but let me just remind you briefly of the Bensky Bifurcated System of Middle East Historical Analysis:
If the Arabs are still smoldering over the Crusades or setting off bombs in Madrid because of the reconquista, that only shows how authentic and in touch with their culture they are. We have to understand and appease their grievances and sense of injustice.
On the other hand, with respect to the Arab-Israel conflict, history began this morning and dragging up what happened last week, much less, say, what the Arabs failed to do in 1947, is entirely irrelevant.
Take a look at this report:
Now I am starting to get really worried.
Syria thinks it should rule what is now Israel. They also aspire to rule Lebanon, the territory the PA is misgoverning, and Jordan as well as parts of Turkey and Iraq. Greater Syria has been their goal for a long time.
Syria is not alone in this ambition of course. Egypt wants to expand into the Levant (Egypt fought a ten year war with the Ottomans in the 1830s trying this, and lost only because the British helped the Turks). Other Arab countries want to expand too. When you hear Arabs complaining about Israel’s alleged expansionism it’s really projection on their part.