In Search Of A Happy Ending...

I understand that the movie 'Old Yeller' is available for sale on DVD. I saw 'Old Yeller' as a kid and it made me cry when Tommy Kirk's character shot Old Yeller at the end. (I thought it was Tim Considine, but was deluged by readers correcting my gaffe)

I think I'll buy it and watch it again. Maybe THIS time, it will have a happy ending. If not, I'll go buy another copy from a different story and try watching that one. Maybe he won't shoot the dog.

If not, there are other stores . . . I know it sounds silly, but if I do it often enough, and talk about how often I do it, I may be offered a job as a UN diplomat.

It sounds like a fun job. Lots of travel, a big expense account, and I understand that the more meaningless your efforts are, the further you can advance up the ladder.

Who knows? If my work is irrelevant enough, I might even get elected Secretary-General where I can help the down-trodden and victimized of this world by rewarding the victimizers and blaming the victims and be the recipient of global accolades for my far-reaching irrelevance.

If not, there's always Disneyland. I hear they have a whole section called Fantasy Land that is evidently dedicated to training UN Secretary-General wannabes.

Or maybe I can enroll in the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad School of Genocidal Cultural Sensitivity. Or the Yasser Arafat Memorial School For Jewish Advancement.

I just want to make the world a better place, and the most expedient method is evidently by helping the Jews make the transition from this Jerusalem to the Big Jerusalem In the Sky.

At the very least, I might get a job offer from Hezbollah or Hamas. Or a nice 'thank you' card from the Big Kahuna himself, Osama bin Laden. . . .

In 1948, the combined forces of the Arab world converged on Israel following her declaration of statehood, vowing to annihilate the infant state while still in its crib.

The UN remained silent, fully expecting the Arab war machine to overrun the unarmed and unorganized Jewish state and put an end to the Jewish Question without having to endure another Adolf Hitler or another world war in order to accomplish it, while keeping a clear conscience in the meantime.

After all, the Germans were Europeans and Europe was much too cultured to countenance another Holocaust on its soil. On the other hand, the attacking forces in this case were all Arab Muslims. And killing Jews is what Arab Muslims do.

Nobody can blame them for that, anymore than one can blame a cat for killing mice. So the UN accepted Israel's declaration, granted it admission to the UN, and sat back to enjoy the fireworks.

To the UN's surprise, the ragtag Israeli Defense Forces beat back the combined armies of Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia and acquired an extra 2000 square miles of territory beyond that granted by the 1947 Partition Plan.

This forced the United Nations to impose a cease-fire on Israel, before the Israelis took over the whole durned Islamic Middle East.

In 1956, a new war between Israel and Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser broke out after the armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria were consolidated under Egyptian leadership in a second effort to eradicate the Jewish State.

Israel's Operation Kadesh, commanded by Moshe Dayan, lasted less than a week; its forces reached the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in about 100 hours, seizing the Gaza Strip and nearly all the Sinai Peninsula.

Panicked, the UN General Assembly imposed a cease fire against Israel, forcing the Jewish State to give back all the territory it had gained during the second war of annihilation against the Jews in the space of eight years.

The hard-headed Israelis refused to surrender to the UN at first. It took several more resolutions and pressure from the United States before Israel withdrew in 1957 to its original, indefensible borders to wait for the next invasion.

Even then, the Jews wouldn't withdraw without security guarantees, so the UN established a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to stand between Israel and the Arab world.

It took ten years before the Arab world sufficiently recovered to mount a third attempt to annihilate the Jews.

In June, 1967, when the Arab forces were fully prepared and Cairo has massed sufficient troops along Israel's border, UNEF pulled out and let Jordan, Syria and Egypt have another go at them.

Six days later, Israel had destroyed the Arab Legion's air force, kicked Syria off the Golan Heights, took back all of Jerusalem, threw Jordan out of the West Bank and took the Gaza Strip away from Egypt.

Israel's annexation of Sinai, Gaza, Arab East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Golan Heights, shortened its land frontiers with Egypt and Jordan, removed the most heavily populated Jewish areas from direct Arab artillery range, and temporarily increased its strategic advantages.

Aghast, the United Nations imposed another ceasefire on Israel [Resolution 242] before the Islamic world's war-making abilities were completely destroyed.

In 1973, Egypt tried again, supported by Syria and financed by Saudi Arabia. The sneak attack was scheduled for October 6, as Israeli forces were at home with their families celebrating Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

The UN's major powers, including the US, Russians, French and the UK all knew of the attack several days in advance, but, in the spirit of fair play, let Israel discover it when Egyptian and Syrian tanks began rolling over Israel's border cities.

When it became clear that, instead of being finally destroyed, the Israelis had started to win [again] the UN forced another ceasefire and stationed another UN force between Israel and the Arabs to oversee Israeli compliance. [Resolution 338]

The Arab governments finally realized that they couldn't defeat Israel by conventional means, so they went underground, offering material support and training to Islamic terror groups, including Yasser Arafat's al Fatah and later, to Hezbollah.

In the thirty years since, the UN has passed more resolutions 'condemning' Israel, 'deploring' Israel, 'strongly condemning' Israel, imposing conditions on Israel and subsequently 'deeply regretting' Israel for ignoring them than it has against the rest of the world combined.

Twenty-six percent of all UN resolutions passed by the General Assembly since 1948 expressly condemn Israel. Of the 175 resolutions passed between 1948 and 1991, 97 – more than half – were aimed at Israel. Four were against an Arab state.

A month ago, Hamas infiltrated Israeli territory, killing several Israeli soldiers and kidnapping one young Israeli corporal to hold hostage, demanding the release of 1200 Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails as ransom.

The following week, Hezbollah invaded from the north, killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two more, announcing its intention to ransom its hostages for terrorist prisoners held by Israel.

The United Nations approved a document entitled “International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages” in December, 1979. Article 1 of this document defines the crime:

“Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the "hostage") in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this Convention.”

Article 3 expressly gives the state whose citizen was taken hostage carte blanche to do what is necessary to recover such hostages.

“The State Party in the territory of which the hostage is held by the offender shall take all measures it considers appropriate to ease the situation of the hostage, in particular, to secure his release and, after his release, to facilitate, when relevant, his departure.”

Since the UN has not invoked [or even alluded to] its own conventions on hostage taking, one can only conclude that, under UN rules, 1) an Israeli hostage is not a 'person' and, 2) Israel is not a 'state'.

Therefore, Israeli military efforts aimed at recovering its hostages cannot be permitted. Consequently, UN Resolution 1701 imposing an Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal from Lebanon [without its hostages] passed the UN Security Council unanimously.

Secretary Kofi Annan expressed his deep disappointment in the Security Council [read: the United States] for letting Israel run roughshod over the 'innocent' Lebanese (who supplied Hezbollah with both a base of operations and helped them spirit Israeli hostages out of reach.)

Resolution 1701 'tabled' the fate of the hostages until a later time. [No doubt an endless source of comfort and hope for the Israeli hostages and their families]

To ensure a 'lasting peace' Israel must stop killing Hezbollah fighters. [While there are still some left to rearm and regroup]. UNIFIL's mandate to ensure Lebanon's border security was renewed. UNIFIL has been on Lebanon's border for 28 years. It is worth remembering that UNIFIL witnessed the Hezbollah abductions on July 12, but neither prevented NOR REPORTED it.

In its entire 28 year history, UNIFIL has yet to be cited as having prevented a SINGLE cross border incursion into Israeli territory by Hezbollah terrorists.

However, UNIFIL's value as a neutral deterrent force WAS highlighted in 2000. That was when the UN was forced to release photographic evidence of 'dozens' of UNIFIL troops and official UNIFIL vehicles that were PRESENT when Hezbollah kidnapped three other Israeli soldiers.

In that incident, it turned out that Hezbollah fighters were able to get close enough because they were wearing UNIFIL uniforms supplied by Indian elements of the UNIFIL force [in exchange for bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars).

An Indian soldier attached to that UNIFIL unit later testified, "By this stage, there was a big commotion and dozens of UN soldiers from the Indian brigade came around." He testified that they all knew that the men wearing their uniforms were really Hezbollah in disguise.

He also testified that at least four UN soldiers collaborated with Hezbollah, helping them to reach the ambush site and assisted them in locating their IDF targets. When the story broke, Kofi Annan indignantly denied it and refused to investigate or take any action against the UNIFIL soldiers involved.

When Israel discovered the attack had been videotaped by UNIFIL soldiers, it demanded access to it. Kofi Annan and his Special Envoy denied that any videotape existed. Nine months after the kidnapping, July 6, 2001, the UN admitted that it had the videotape but refused to turn it over to Israel.

Kofi Annan demanded a UN 'investigation', which unsurprisingly concluded that there was no evidence that the UNIFIL forces had been bribed, or that the UN had deliberately misled anyone.

Annan nevertheless continued to refuse to let Israel see the tape until after he was forced to by a US Congressional vote [411-4] that tied compliance with Israeli's request to continued US financial support.

In the end, Kofi relented, kinda, but not before doctoring the tape so the perpetrators could not be identified. He also agreed to give the Israelis some, but not all, of the items which the UN had seized from the getaway cars.

On January 29, 2004, the bodies of the murdered Israelis were returned to Israel by Hezbollah, as part of a prisoner exchange.

So clearly, UNIFIL is the PERFECT choice to continue to protect Israel from Islamic terror. Which is why Kofi praised them so profusely in his UN rant following Resolution 1701's unanimous assage.

Resolution 1701 forbids further deployment of 'foreign forces' [like Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Syrian intelligence, etc.] from Lebanon without the consent of Lebanon's government. It forbids the sales or supply of arms and weapons into Lebanon without authorization from Lebanon's government.

Kofi Annan says that should address Israel's concerns about Hezbollah using the ceasefire to rearm itself. And it requires Lebanon's government to obey previous UN resolutions to disarm Hezbollah.

Has anybody ELSE noticed that Hezbollah is an elected PART of Lebanon's government?

As a parting shot, Resolution 1701 “Stresses the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973.”

Strangely, Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah and Hamas wasn't mentioned as relevant to "a just and lasting peace."

I could go on, but its too depressing. So I just put Old Yeller in my DVD player. I could use a happy ending.

Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
08.26.06