Jewish World Review May 15, 2007 / 27 Iyar, 5767
Israel Didn’t Lose in Lebanon; America Hasn’t Lost in Iraq
By Dennis Prager

I was reminded of this by a recent Thomas Friedman column. Echoing the Beirut editor, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist delineated six reasons why Hezbollah lost that war. In Friedman’s words, they are:

1. “Mr. Nasrallah (the head of Hezbollah) demonstrated a total failure to anticipate Israel’s response to his raid … Some 1,200 Lebanese died because of this gross error in judgment.”

2. “(Hezbollah) did grievous harm to Lebanon’s fragile democracy and democratization in the Arab world. All the fears that if you let an Islamist party into government it will not respect the rules of the game were fulfilled by Hezbollah.”

3. “By launching all these rockets prematurely, without strategic purpose, Hezbollah has diminished its capability and Syria’s and Iran’s.”

4. “(Hezbollah) has lost its military infrastructure, and can’t attack Israel now without getting embroiled with France and Italy (which have peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon) — a huge strategic loss for Hezbollah.”

5. “Israel has embarked on a broad upgrade of its military (thanks to the lessons learned from its poor performance). In any future war Arab armies will meet a much better trained and equipped Israeli force.”

6. “Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attack has resulted in billions of dollars of damage to Lebanese homes, factories and roads, with Shiite areas the worst hit and with zero security benefit to Lebanon.”

So why does just about everyone believe that Israel “lost” the war in Lebanon?
For two primary reasons:

First, the world defines victory of the stronger party — in this case, Israel — as either total victory or as a loss. Israel did not destroy Hezbollah, therefore it lost. Second, the world’s news media said Israel lost; and the media now determine reality. Some 40 years ago, Marshall McLuhan made his prophetic statement, “The medium is the message.” It is truer than ever. Man-made global warming is deemed the greatest threat to mankind’s future because the media have announced it to be so. Anna Nicole Smith’s death was significant because the media said it was. Genocide in Sudan is insignificant because the media don’t much report on it. The Chinese decimation and annexation of Tibet is insignificant because the media have ignored it.

for the rest of Dennis Prager’s article: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0507/prager051507.php3?printer_friendly

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