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Lebanon: down into the pit

If you want to know what anti-Zionism yields, start with the anarchy in Lebanon.

“Anarchy” is one of those words easily given to exaggeration and metaphor in common discourse. Lebanon today is the dictionary definition of anarchy.

On the political front, there is a government and there is Hezbollah, a competing government. Hezbollah has no interest in running Lebanon per se; it’s in the country to forge a base from which to attack Israel. This means that political instability — assassinations, fiefdoms, warlords, intra-ethnic hostilities — are all justifiable if they advance Hezbollah’s cause: military preparation for the destruction of Israel. That Lebanon is on the verge of being a failed state is of no interest to Hezbollah if it can stockpile missiles and rockets aimed at Israel.

On the economic front, it has become almost impossible to measure Lebanon’s drop in Gross Domestic Product because the call of the hour is to flee the country. Businessmen, physicians, professionals — anyone who can get out is getting out. Everything from a guaranteed tank of gasoline to a meal in a restaurant is iffy at best. The lines for gasoline are long, the violence at gasoline stations is marked, and the supply chain for restaurants’ food has broken down.

Basic services are also not guaranteed. Since a massive explosion in downtown Beirut a year ago, nothing has been fixed. Not to mention, the bureaucratic procedures that led to the dangerous storage of flammable materials in an unprotected place have not been rectified. What else might lie in store for Beirut or other cities is anyone’s guess.

Transportation has broken down not just in the automobile sector. The future of Beirut’s airport is also iffy.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah keeps its priorities firmly in place:

• trying to safeguard the trails for the import of Iranian weapons;

• stockpiling ever more missiles;

• attacking Israel’s north every couple of weeks (no doubt, to divert Lebanon’s attention from the anarchy Hezbollah has stoked and tolerated inside Lebanon).

People debate today whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. In Hezbollah circles, the debate is no debate. Hezbollah wants millions of Israeli Jews dead. It aims its weapons at military and civilian targets alike. Its only rationale in holding back from a massive attack on Israel at this time is a cost-benefit analysis. It is based on the drubbing Lebanon took the last time it attacked Israel, in 2006; on Israel’s development of the Iron Dome; and on the agreement across the badly riven Israeli political sector that national security trumps politics.

Political unity prevailed last May during Israel’s response to Hamas’ war on Israel, and that’s the way it would be if Hezbollah began its own war.

But the reasons why economists and foreign leaders focus on the disintegration of Lebanon is not primarily its cause — the de facto seizure of the country by the anti-Israel Hezbollah — but its condition:anarchy. It is a lugubrious cautionary tale.

Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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