Israel’s War with Hezbollah is a Just Necessity

The terrorist group has fired thousands of rockets at the Jewish state over the past year — prompted by a sickening pogrom against Israel by another terrorist group — and we are told that Israel, by finally responding with a decisive attack, is dangerously escalating the situation.

Since the Hamas crime on October 7, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has fired some 8,000 rockets at Israel.

These indiscriminate attacks forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee the north of the country.

In July, a Hezbollah rocket killed 12 young adults and children playing soccer in the Golan Heights, a random massacre that had no military purpose.

Israel has responded to the horrors of the Golan Heights, but has generally taken the brunt of Hezbollah’s attacks as it focuses on the war with Hamas in the south while the Biden administration seeks to contain it in the north.

As usual, the theme is that the Jewish state has an obligation to accept as a backdrop unprovoked attacks on its sovereign territory that no other state would ever tolerate.

What other country must endure rampant violence against civilians as the price for false regional civility?

Israel will not follow these rules and should not do so.

It began to harden its policy against Hezbollah, carrying out attacks on Hezbollah fighters using pagers and other electronic devices, worthy of a “Mission Impossible.”

The pager attack was an experiment to see if Israel could conduct what is probably the most finely calibrated counter-terrorism operation in modern times, and Still be accused of committing war crimes.

Indeed, AOC and others have condemned the Jewish state.

Israel attacks terrorist targets from the air — and is accused of war crimes.

Israel invades the land and is accused of war crimes.

Israel does neither, choosing to fight terrorists with its own resources — and is accused of war crimes.

The assumption is that Israel’s role is to hide, conceal itself, and accept whatever punishment its ruthless enemies inflict on it in order to avoid “escalating” the situation.

The IDF could conduct delaying operations as the Jewish state was pushed into the sea by an advancing force bent on its destruction — and it would be Still be accused of war crimes.

This entire way of thinking is a profound moral distortion, masked under the guise of nuanced strategic thinking.

The claim that the pager attack constitutes a violation of international law is absurd.

Philosopher Michael Walzer argued against the operation in The New York Times, arguing that the agents killed and wounded “were not mobilized and did not participate in military operations.”

At the same time, however, he admitted: “Yes, these devices were most likely used by Hezbollah fighters for military purposes.”

This made them legitimate military targets.

From a practical standpoint, there is no other way Israel could have attacked so many terrorists with so little collateral damage.

He could have sent a drone or snipers after a few of them, which would have — tragically — resulted in even more collateral damage.

The attack on the pagers was carried out by Hezbollah itself, distributing the devices to its operators.

Taking advantage of the disruption of Hezbollah’s communications and the reduction of its ranks, Israel carried out a bombing attack on a meeting place of high-ranking Hezbollah leaders and destroyed Hezbollah ammunition and rocket launchers from the air.

The Biden administration sees this as simple escalation because it does not understand the concept of deterrence — making the enemy afraid of what you might do to them, rather than letting the enemy set the pace of the conflict or constraining your actions out of fear of what they might do next.

If Israel manages to effectively contain Hezbollah, it could mean – although this is of course not certain – that the conflict will de-escalate.

However, the Jewish state has no obligation to tolerate what is unbearable.

Twitter: @RichLowry