There is something to be learned from the frenzied love-fest given in Beirut in mid-July to the most notorious of the Lebanese prisoners released by Israel. Samir Kuntar was sentenced to 542 years in prison for killing four people during a raid in 1979. Kuntar executed a father (Danny Haran) in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killed the little girl by smashing her head against a rock with a rifle butt. But to the Lebanese, Kuntar is a returning hero... [snip]
Barry Rubin of the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel has observed:
"What horrifies me most are not radicals cheering terrorist Samir Kuntar, but that most relative moderates feel compelled to do so. At the airport to greet him were leaders of Lebanon's anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian Druze and Christian groups as well as the ambassadors from Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Morocco. To avoid being discredited, relative moderates must affirm that anyone who murders Israeli children is a hero."The massive support shown for Kuntar throughout Lebanon, if taken at face value, has effectively re-defined the status of the Lebanese government (and, by extension, the Lebanese people) as the enemy of Israel. Giora Eiland, the former chief of Israel's National Security Council noted in Ynet News:
"The only way to prevent another war is to make it clear that should war break out, Lebanon may be razed to the ground. Not only will the Lebanese government fear it, so would Hezb'allah . . . This will deter the group, if it realizes that aggression on its part would result in destruction that would outrage the population and turn it against Hezb'allah."In effect, in the event of a Third Lebanon War, a vast array of strategic targets throughout Lebanon would no longer be immune from Israeli retaliation. By making common cause with Hezb'allah, the Lebanese stand to reap the whirlwind.
[bit it's Israel which will be vilified in the press - despite the foreknowledge that it will be Lebanon-Hezballah which starts it - again]
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