Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Hezbollah Operates Like the Democratic Party

Some of the liberals in Israel who advocated withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 are now admitting they were wrong. They see the current conflict as unavoidable, a struggle to prevent the destruction of Israel and the deaths of themselves and their fellow citizens. One of liberals who advocated withdrawal said that she thought that economic prosperity in Lebanon through engagement would help to insure peace. What she didn't realize is that Hezbollah would never allow economic prosperity to take hold. Instead, Hezbollah destroyed the market and destroyed the means whereby Lebonese could become prosperous through violence, fomenting ethnic tensions, and by putting all sorts of restrictions and controls on commerce, especially with Israel. Then they used money from Iran and Syria to make the Lebanese population dependent on them through various types of "welfare" or with positions in the Hezbollah organization.

In that sense Hezbollah operates exactly like the American Democratic Party -- hamstring the economy with taxes and regulations, make it impossible for most people to get a leg up, foment class and ethnic tensions, and then make the people dependent on you by giving them other people's money.

It's no wonder that there's so much sympathy among liberals and leftists for the terrorists.