Yes, Israel's response to the Hezbollah and Hamas provocations is disproportionate. So what? Wouldn't any Israeli response be disproportionate, given both the asymmetric nature of the terror war and the Jewish state's military might? And just what would a proportionate Israeli response look like?
How is a sovereign state supposed to react when terrorist groups enter its territory and kill and kidnap its soldiers?
How is a nation supposed to react when a terrorist organization that controls a neighboring state's territory fires rockets randomly into its population centers?
Would more United Nations resolutions give much comfort, since U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 has required the disarming of Hezbollah in Lebanon since 2004?
Would such grand phrases as "land for peace" have much meaning, since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in August 2005, dismantling Israeli military bases and expelling thousands of Israeli settlers—only to see this independent Palestinian territory become a staging area for rocket attacks and the killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers? Or after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in May 2000—only to see southern Lebanon become a staging area for missile attacks and the killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers?
Would an immediate cease-fire do anything to enhance Israel's security, since Israelis have learned during the past weeks that Hezbollah missiles provided by Iran and Syria can reach deep into Israel?
Would immediate negotiations—a new peace process, a new round of shuttle diplomacy, another Camp David or Oslo—hold much promise, since Israel would be negotiating with enemies who all believe Israel should be wiped off the map?
Would there be much to discuss with an Iran that is pursuing the nuclear capacity to make that vicious wish a reality, an Iran whose president regularly calls into question the Holocaust and the state that grew out of its ashes?
Would a new force of international peacekeepers in southern Lebanon prove a panacea, since the force of U.N. peacekeepers already there—the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, established in 1978—has been worthless in stopping Hezbollah incursions into Israel?
Not until Israel has done all it practically can to wipe out Hezbollah. Not until Iran and Syria understand their proxy attacks have failed utterly.
When will that time come? Sometime after Israel destroys the Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon—its headquarters, weapons stockpiles and supply networks—and before Israeli military operations there reach a point of diminishing returns in terms of international and Lebanese opinion. Not a moment sooner, not a moment later.
Meanwhile, Israel should kill all the terrorists and smash all the terrorist weaponry it can. Yes, it will be ugly, because Hezbollah has made victims of innocent Lebanese by hiding its missiles in civilian homes. But what choice does Israel have? Can it sit back and learn to live with a group whose leader calls it a "cancerous body" to be "uprooted" and whose weaponry is more potent and sophisticated than anyone anticipated even a few weeks ago?
Israel didn't start this, but Israel can finish it, and the United States should continue to do nothing to get in its way. Israel's enemies—Hezbollah, Hamas and their sponsors in Iran and Syria—are our enemies. Israel's fight against terrorists and their benefactors is our fight. It's time to let Israel fight. Then, it will be time for cease-fires, negotiations and peacekeepers.
A spokesman for Iran's Hezbollah, a group with links to the Lebanese group, told Reuters it was ready to hit Israeli and U.S. interests worldwide. "We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year," Mojtaba Bigdeli said. "They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests."
Hezbollah, it seems, realizes that Israel's fight—the fight forced on Israel—is our fight, too.
David Reinhard
