PM Harper: Real Leadership

Today Prime Minister Stephen Harper demonstrated real leadership with his announcement that he, his wife Laureen and essential staff members will be traveling to Cyprus to help evacuate as many as 120 Canadians from the theater of operations of the Israel-Hezbollah War. Some may dismiss this move as an effort to score political points, but the fact remains that this is a substantial contribution and an efficient use of government resources. Once again, Prime Minister Harper has shown that he has the fortitude to go into harm's way on behalf of citizens he represents. As always, we should keep all who are fleeing this war in any of our prayers, as well as those who must stay behind in the hell for which Hezbollah, Hamas and their supporters are responsible.

Israel-Hezbollah War

Israel today continues operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, part its ongoing campaign against regional terrorist groups whose main objective is the annihilation of the Jewish state. While some have characterized Israel's response to terrorist activities as "disproportionate," I fully support her efforts to guarantee her security by neutralizing these threats. This support, however, must be qualified.

Over the past two weeks, Israel has targeted civilian facilities in order to deny her enemies the logistical support they need to carry out their plans. For example, airstrikes were carried out on a major international airport in Beirut as well as major bridges to prevent the movement of hostages outside Israel's area of control. A major power plant in the Gaza Strip was also targeted. The blame for these actions clearly rests with the terrorists who precipitated this sequence of events. For the millions of people in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon whose lives have been disrupted, this fact is not readily apparent. Many of these people may place the immediate blame on Israel and go no further in their analysis.

There is a distinct possibility that the resentments created by the inconveniences of the current operation will lead to the development of a new generation of terrorists. While the IDF claims that needed supplies continue to flow into the Gaza Strip, more needs to be done to demonstrate to the local population that Israel, not Hamas and Hezbollah, has their best interests in mind. A psychological victory on this front would help prevent terrorist strikes in the future and generate additional support for any needed counterterrorist operations. Ultimately, this could create needed moderate Muslim pressure on the primary bad actors in the region, Iran and Syria.

Until Israel can recast public opinion in a favorable manner and the aforementioned external threats are minimized (diplomatically or militarily, if necessary), wars like the current one will periodically flare up. For regional security interests, we can only hope that Israel prevails over Hezbollah and soon this scourge will no longer plague the region.

NOTE: Israeli flag is from the CIA's The World Factbook.