The Twisted Logic Of Terror
The New York Times has an article up about Lebanon, Hezbollah and the logic the terror groups use. It's frankly a pretty bleak picture.
“It is strange that one man representing a faction of the Shia, Hassan Nasrallah, is holding the whole Lebanese population hostage,” said Elie Fawaz, a Lebanese political analyst and critic of Hezbollah, speaking of the Hezbollah leader.
With three Israeli soldiers kidnapped — one now in Gaza and two in Lebanon — and Israel carrying out military reprisals, there is for now less room in the Middle East for moderate voices, voices of peace, according to political analysts, government officials and security officials in Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The region’s agenda, as often in the past, is largely being set by militants — with the masses swept along in emotion, anger and vengeance.
“They are happy, very happy,” said Marwan Shahadeh, an Islamist and researcher in Amman, Jordan, speaking about the groups that want to focus on war with Israel.
The same dynamics are true of governments. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries with peace treaties with Israel, are facing increasing hostility in the news media and on their own streets, while Iran and Syria, strong opponents of peace with Israel, have seen their credibility on the street increase. Sensing the tension among their people, Egyptian and Jordanian officials have stepped up domestic security efforts. In Egypt officials have moved to rein in the news media and stop street demonstrations. In Jordan, officials have pressed older members of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, to rein in its more militant young members.
“They are in great embarrassment,” Taher al-Masry, a former prime minister of Jordan, said of Jordan and Egypt. “These two countries have signed peace treaties, but having and observing peace with Israel is not the same as letting Israel do what it likes because we have peace with them. I think there is a major burden on both countries to do something. I don’t know what, but something.”
Regional momentum is supporting hard-liners. Newspapers and television commentators have assailed Egypt and Jordan for trying to negotiate a peaceful solution between Hamas and Israel. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who planned to call a referendum on whether to support a two-state solution, has been increasingly silenced. Even the Hamas leadership in Gaza, which had sought to forge a consensus with other Palestinian factions, found itself trumped by its more militant members.
The more misery the terrorists bring down on their own people, the more those people support the terrorists. It is a sick and twisted logic. The saddest thing is that Lebanon once had peace and security, a decent economy and a culture that was at least able to let diverse religions coexist. Then they saw all that turn to dust and ash in a bitter, and ultimately useless, civil war. Just when they were starting to put that behind them, Hezbollah derails the process and rains Hell down upon them again.
You'd think the Muslim "street" would see that picture and not fall for the twisted logic of terror.
By John F. Opie, Friday, 14 July , 2006 @ 12:59 pm
Hi -
The twisted logic is that terrrorists have to destroy in order to take down. Lebanon, with its French background, its relaxed culture, its civil society, had to be destroyed and remade in the image of the caliphate, ruled by death and destruction.
Shameless plug:
http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2006/07/asymmetry.html
for more on why the terrorists have to act the way they do.
John