Decision Time in Israel

Toll Climbs In Mideast As Fighting Rages On
As Leaders Weigh Plans, Westerners Flee Beirut

By Jonathan Finer and Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; Page A01

JERUSALEM, July 17 -- Israel traded heavy fire with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon on Monday, its air and artillery attacks killing at least 38 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and Hezbollah rockets made their deepest strikes yet into the Jewish state.

Blaring air raid sirens sent Israelis dashing for concrete bomb shelters throughout the day, and thousands of people across Lebanon abandoned their homes to flee the violence. Several Western nations, including the United States, launched plans to evacuate their citizens from the battered country.

With the violence came a flurry of diplomatic efforts to bring about a cease-fire and quell the crisis. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for deployment of multinational peacekeeping forces to southern Lebanon. U.S. officials called such a move premature, but did not reject it; Israeli officials did.

Hours after that proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that Israel would not halt its offensive on Lebanon until four conditions were met: the release of two soldiers abducted last week, the deployment of the Lebanese army along a buffer zone at the border, the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from that zone and the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of militias such as Hezbollah, a radical Shiite Muslim group.

"There are moments in the life of a nation when it is compelled to look directly into the face of reality and say: no more. This is such a moment," Olmert told Israel's parliament in a defiant, emotional speech, his first formal address since the new violence began. "We will search every compound, target every terrorist who assists in attacking the citizens of Israel and destroy every terrorist infrastructure, everywhere."

Olmert is exactly right. It is, if you will pardon the expression, "Come to Jesus time" for the Israelis. They have tried every diplomatic means available, short of surrender, to solve the problems with the Palestinians and the Terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is now time to eliminate these groups as far as is possible.

Hezbollah and Hamas are not just enemies of Israel, they are the enemy of all who live under Western style democracies. They are the enemy of all who would practice, or not, the religion of their choice. They are the declared enemies of freedom throughout the world. As such, they need to be obliterated whereever they reside. They, like al Qaeda and other Global Jihadist Sects need to be erased from the face of the Earth. They are no different than the Nazis and Stalinists of the last century, murderers and cutthroats all.

We should be helping Israel, using every means available, to end this threat once and for all.

What do you think?

To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below