The Gaza War Reflects On Hizbollah's Defeat In 2006

Operation Cast Lead created all kind of parallels in people's minds with the war in 2006. The firing of rockets from Lebanon into Israel during the conflict raises another.

Michael Totten writes:

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah declared a “divine victory” in August of 2006, and most Israelis agreed. Bombastic boasts to the contrary, however, Hezbollah lost, and Hezbollah knows it.

I’m hardly the first to point out that Hezbollah sat out the Gaza war. Somebody fired a salvo of rockets into Israel from South Lebanon on January 8, and Hezbollah couldn’t distance itself from the attack fast enough. If the 2006 war was such a success, why wouldn’t Nasrallah want to rack up another divine victory? He could hardly ask for a more auspicious time to launch the next round if that’s what he was planning. The Israel Defense Forces were busy and preoccupied in Gaza, and much of world opinion had already turned sharply against the Israelis. If Nasrallah’s passivity doesn’t prove he feels more reluctant to pick a fight than he did in 2006, it certainly strongly suggests it.

Noting that few in Lebanon believe Nasrallah's boasts the Hizbollah won, Totten notes:

Today, though, he moves clandestinely from one undisclosed location to the next as though he were Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. Cave hideouts aren’t Lebanon’s style, so he makes do in various basements while promising Israelis he wasn’t the one who shot at them a few weeks ago.

Read the whole thing.

Some victor.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Operation Cast Lead and Hizbollah.