Lessons Still Not Learned; Hamas and Hezbollah
Hezbollah and Hamas feed from the same source--providing services to the poor of their countries, something we've been unable to do in the West and don't value sufficiently.
The common thinking (at least in this country) is that Hezbollah and Hamas are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and that al Queda is obsessed with the demise of America.
Both surmisings are wrong and, because they are wrong, America is likely to find itself in an unending as well as an unwinnable conflict against terrorism within the Muslim world.
There is certainly very little doubt that Israel is despised by a very large proportion of the Arab population. Equally, no one in their right mind, after the destruction of the World Trade Center, would deny that al Queda and a good bit of what is loosely termed ‘the Arab street’ are anti-American. Yet the point has still been missed. The price for missing it is going to be more than we want (or are able) to pay.
America is the current power structure in the world, un…