Another miracle has happened in the place where Jesus once trod. He used to teach people to protect the weak, the lame, the blind, the poor, and the defenseless from the ravages of oppression but after more than 30 days of fighting, those weak, poor, defenseless people have risen to defend themselves. It was thought not long ago that Israel was one of the most powerful armies in the world and it had never suffered a defeat. Lebanon was a small, mostly undefended country just waking from a 26 year occupation with thoughts of nothing more than concerts, shopping, and clubbing. Then came 12 July. The Zionist state that played itself off as a David against a Goliath brutally attacked this small country, which has for all means and purposes no standing army, in the name of “self-defence.”
After the horrendous onslaught of the Israeli war machine wiped out the Lebanese infrastructure and so carelessly killed innocent civilians throughout Lebanon, we knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that that David was actually the Goliath. This mammoth force relentlessly attacked Lebanon with impunity. In its arrogance, it thought it could strangle out Hezbollah or cause sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Maronites against the Shi’a forcing the Lebanese to eliminate Hezbollah and providing the US administration with a test run of the American military plan to attack Iran. They committed the cardinal sin of any military campaign; never underestimate your opponent.
No one outside Hezbollah could have reasonably imagined that this rag-tag militia had the capability of doing more than an occasional hit and run operation against the massive Israeli military with all their technology and US supplied, precision guided weaponry. Hezbollah wasn’t as irresponsible. They knew the power of the IDF and the tactics of their enemy. They knew what strategies worked for them and which would fail. They played the Israelis like a violin. Hezbollah had an extensive media front, they had a diplomatic front, they had a domestic political front, they had substantial financial resources, and the support of the people, at least in the south. Hezbollah had made few to no mistakes in it’s strategy. They were prepared for an Israeli surprise attack.
The Lebanese media and political leaders as well as their ex-patriot community, also played a large role in the international opposition to Israel’s destructive war of “self-defence.” One key miscalculation Israel made was in the Lebanese people. After fifteen years of civil war and the circumstances surrounding 14 February 2005, including the assassinations of so many Sunnis and Maronites, the Lebanese people, even if by accident, had been fused enough to present a united front against the overreaching Israeli aggression. The Christians, Druze, and Muslims had lost so much but also worked so hard to regain so much that they now, collectively, had something for them all to lose should Israel destroy Lebanon. This was only magnified by the utterly stupid IAF strikes against purely Christian targets in Lebanon. For the first time in modern history, a country was attacking a unified Lebanon. Though the political allegiances and old arguments will be there long after the last agreement is signed, for one brief month, there was one Lebanon, one cause.
So, in the land where Jesus turned water into wine, made the blind see, and so many other unknown miracles, once more, a miracle happened in this tiny land of cedars. Despite being the 4th largest army in the world and despite it receiving emergency supplies from the largest army in the world, this small country we call Lebanon has beaten Israel giving the Zionist state its first ever military defeat. Yes, the losses were great and the suffering, severe. But, let it be said for the whole world to hear; in the greatest of ironies, this time the land of the cedars turned out to be David and the land of David was Goliath; and Goliath has fallen!
