By Andrew L. Jaffee

When considering the Middle East conflict in general, and the current war between Israel and Hezbollah, it is important to keep your intellectual arsenal stocked with the facts:

• Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel. From the Middle East Quarterly:
  

  Here, then, is Nasrallah on the future intentions of Hizbullah:

  One of the central reasons for creating Hizbullah was to challenge the Zionist program in the region. Hizbullah still preserves this principle, and when an Egyptian journalist visited me after the liberation and asked me if the destruction of Israel and the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem were Hizbullah’s goal, I replied: “That is the principal objective of Hizbullah, and it is no less sacred than our [ultimate] goal…

  See also: Parliament of Australia, ADL, and the BBC:

  The party’s rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

• Even the BBC admits the cause of the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah:
  

  The crisis was triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants on 12 July.

• Hezbollah is using Lebanese civilians as human shields. Source: Houston Chronicle. See also the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Hezbollah is specifically targeting Israeli civilians by launching rockets at urban centers. Source: BBC.
• Hezbollah is indiscriminate in targeting civilians and has killed Arab children with its rockets. Source: Reuters.
• Hezbollah rockets have landed near Palestinian villages. Source: Reuters, Washington Post.
• Hezbollah leader “Nasrallah has declared Arab casualties of his group’s rocket attacks ‘martyrs for Allah.’” Source: All Headline News.
• Hezbollah has hidden weapons in mosques. Source: Fox.
• Israel regularly warns Lebanese civilians before attacking Hezbollah tagets. Source: Daily Mail. See also Bloomberg.
• Hezbollah is defying U.N. Resolution 1559, calling for the disarming of all militias based in Lebanon. See the BBC.
• Hezbollah is a proxy for two of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism, Syria and Iran. See the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Hezbollah has an immense arsenal of weaponry at its disposal. In its own words, from the Middle East Quarterly:
  

  “They say [we have] 12,000 rockets — I say more than 12,000 rockets.”

• Israel has the right to exist as a sovereign, secure democracy. Information about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not that hard to find. For example, take the World Almanac and Book of Facts, available in any mainstream bookstore and at most public libraries. Its profile of Israel states:*
  

  … The Hebrews probably arrived early in the 2d millennium BC …

  … Arab invaders conquered Palestine in 636. The Arabic language and Islam prevailed within a few centuries, but a Jewish minority remained …

  … Jewish immigration, begun in the late 19th century, swelled in the 1930s with refugees from the Nazis; heavy Arab immigration from Syria and Lebanon also occurred. Arab opposition to Jewish immigration turned violent in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936. The UN General Assembly voted in 1947 to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. Britain withdrew in May 1948.

  Israel was declared an independent state May 14, 1948; the Arabs rejected partition. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia invaded, but failed to destroy the Jewish state, which gained territory. …

  So we have ancient evidence of a Jewish presence in “Palestine” since 2000 BC, which can easily be found in any reputable archaeological journal. We have evidence of a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land. We have evidence that Arabs, not just Jews, were immigrants into the Levant. Finally, we see that Arabs violently rejected the hallowed concept of a Palestinian homeland in 1948. *Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2002, World Almanac Education Group, Inc., New York, NY, 2002, pp. 808-817.

• Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and plans to withdraw from the West Bank. Source: Wikipedia.

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Related: Israel, War Against Islamo-fascism, Palestinians, Syria, Terrorist Groups

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