The Golden Age of Mid-East Hypocrisy

Recently, thousands of men wearing military gear and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles and RPG-7 antitank rockets paraded through the streets of the Lebanese capital. Some of those who marched in regimented cadence covered their faces with military masks—others simply did not feel the need to conceal their identities. Why bother? They were the ones who ran the country. The men who marched that sunny Beirut morning in a massive show of force were, of course, soldiers in the Hezbollah Shiite terrorist army that is in control of Lebanon. Hezbollah has terrorized much of the Middle East and many parts of the world for 40 years and, through its acts of violence, narco-terrorist operations, and sheer rape of the country, have turned a country that was once called the “Switzerland of the Middle East” into the epitome of “Pity Thy Nation.”

Lebanon has tried to recover from civil war, terror strife, and from having Palestinian and Shiite terrorist groups use the country as a springboard for attacks against Israel, but the situation is now hopeless. Lebanon has become nothing more than an occupied Iranian province of violence and mayhem, completing Tehran’s ambitious Shiite crescent from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Iranian meddling, Hezbollah’s mafia-like control over the country’s parliament and economy have brought Lebanon to the precipice of becoming a failed state—a Phoenician version of Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Venezuela. As a result of Iran’s proxy subjugation, the nation’s infrastructure is in shambles. Inflation is rampant and many no longer have access to electricity and heating fuel; people are going hungry. Much of Beirut, a city that was once called the “Paris of the Middle East,” a city that survived a civil war, lay in ruin due to a massive explosion in the port in August 2020—a blast that came as a result of Hezbollah’s shoddy storing of chemicals needed for the production of explosives. Christians, Druze, and Sunni citizens face a bitter choice: accept Hezbollah and their Iranian Revolutionary Guard masters in Tehran or emigrate. Lebanon is an occupied country.

Yet there are no cries around the world demanding that Iran ends its illegal presence inside Lebanon. There are no calls in the United Nations demanding that Iran end its support for Hezbollah; there isn’t a movement that demands that businesses boycott, divest, and sanction Iran. Why should there be? The woke media and the radical progressive politicians see the world in two ways: Israel as the enemy, and then there is everyone else, and if Israel cannot be blamed for an issue, that issue is of little importance. During the May 2021 conflict in Gaza, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from New York were quick to voice their condemnation of Israel acting in its self-defense, but their buoyantly loud voices have been deafeningly silent when it comes to Hezbollah and Lebanon. The hypocrisy stinks as much as the trash that no longer gets collected in the Lebanese capital.

Hezbollah claims that it will not stop its holy war until it liberates Jerusalem from the Jews. Who will liberate Lebanon from Iran?