Hizballah Claims Israel Murdered Lebanese Leader? That's Enough to Convince Dutch TV

By Barry Rubin

Unfortunately, nothing about the Middle East and the growing inluence of its worst elements is too horrible to be true. A case in point.

A few hours ago--that is, before writing this note--I posted an article on Lebanon that included this passage:

"Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah charges that Israel killed former Lebanese president Rafik Hariri, the act that set off the short-lived Lebanese national revival against Syrian domination. Everyone in Lebanon knows Hariri was killed by Syria through Lebanese agents, who seem to have included Hizballah officials. But no one in political life has the courage to say so...."

I went on to say that people in the West would laugh at this and the other outrageous lies told by radicals in the region but that--hard as it might be to believe--people in the Arab world would accept it as true.

Yet following the pattern in which Middle East ideology, hatred, and slander penetrates the West, Dutch national television took Nasrallah's claim seriously and ran an item suggesting that Israel had murdered the former prime minister.

It should be known that in all the years since Hariri's murder not even Hizballah promoted the idea that Israel did it. The preliminary reports from the international investigation named high-ranking Syrian officials and Lebanese helpers. The actual operation required incredible control over sections of Beirut, including tearing up a street to plant the bomb.

But Nasrallah's claim was enough for Dutch staff television channel 1 to run an item suggesting Israel had murdered Hariri. Naturally, no one was interviewed to explain this was a ridiculous slander.