Depriving people of their right to defend themselves

Rumours of Syria transferring scud missles to the Hezbollah  had been rife for weeks before Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, made the allegations public last week. "Rumours" and "allegations" and
one does not have to be a clairvoyant to know that whatever the size of its arsenal it is insignificant when compared with the firepower of the enemy and the Hezbollah is not going to launch a suicidal war of aggression against the Zionist state. On the other hand, when it comes to predicting that Israel will attack the Lebanon, there is also no need to study the tea leaves, bring out the crystal ball, or look at the stars. Probably not today or next week, possibly not next month, but at some time in the not too distant future, Israel will attack. Therefore, for Jerusalem, it can never be too early to manufacture the reason although knowing what we know, we might indeed think;"why shouldn't the Hezbollah have weapons that might allow them to defend its people?"

According to the 'Times', Washington has summoned Syria’s chargé d'affaires demanding an explaination of "the potential transfer of Scud missiles to Hezbollah." The "potential" and one dictionary definition is given as, "capable of being but not yet in existence; latent."There we have it, "not yet in existence but latent" and this forget the fact that, according to the 'Guardian' the Lebanese government has in the meantime reacted angrily to Israel's accusation that Syria has sent scud missiles to the Hezbollah and compared it to the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction in the leadup to the Iraq war.

Of course, that is hardly the point and even assuming that scud missles had been delivered to the Hezbollah what would this in fact mean? Well, it might mean that the Hezbollah had acquired missles which are capable of hitting Israeli cities and we cannot have that, can we? After all, one thing Israel does not want when it is bombing all and sundry during its next invasion of the Lebanon, is a more level "playing field" and the last, very last thing it wants is some sort of deterrent in the hands of the people who are being attacked and this, indeed, is what this is all about. Not only does the Zionist state insist on bullying, murdering and massacring at will, it also insists on depriving its victims of the right to defend themselves.