Years of restraint have given way to a culminating punishing assault by Israel, and now it is eliminating Hezbollah’s top leadership in Lebanon. It should not come as a surprise that Israel is thumbing its nose at the Biden administration, which urged it to negotiate a deal with the Iranian-supported terror group rather than escalate the war in the Middle East. How could Israel negotiate with a group that refuses to stop its terror attacks in the north, displacing tens of thousands of innocent Israelis, until Israel stops its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza? Israel will not stop its campaign against the terrorists who on Oct. 7, 2023, carried out the largest murderous assault against the Jewish people since the Holocaust until it is eliminated and unable to reconstitute militarily.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed Israel’s willingness to handle only Hamas and to end its strikes against Hezbollah if only Hezbollah would stop its constant attacks. Hezbollah leaders would not stop—and were under the impression that the mighty United States would shield them from Israel. They were wrong, and now they are gone. Israel eliminated Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and then swiftly dispatched his likely successor, Nabil Kaouk, too. Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said, “After almost a year of Israel warning the world and telling them that Hezbollah must be stopped, Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border, taking the necessary action to protect our people so that Israeli families can leave their homes safely and securely.” Quite so.
Beyond the welcome dose of moral clarity about a just government’s primary duty, Americans should learn three big lessons.
One, it is a sign of deeply lamentable diminished American influence with close allies that Israel must depart so openly and explicitly from the U.S. president’s counsel and demands. But national leaders must provide for the protection of their people, and the Israeli government is doing just that. A stronger U.S. presidency would have provided Israeli leadership the public diplomatic and military support it needed to quickly and clearly achieve its military aims against Hamas. Pressuring Israel to “de-escalate” against terrorists who seek to inflict pain and suffering against Israeli citizens is incoherent, a recipe for a bloodier and more costly war, and morally inverted. According to a well-sourced Tablet Magazine report, Ukraine is learning from Israel to depart from U.S. demands to stand down against its aggressor. This was at the forefront of Ukrainian leaders’ minds when it seized Russian territory over the objections of the Biden administration.
Click Here To Read More (Originally Published at World Magazine)
Rebeccah is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and director of Hudson’s Keystone Defense Initiative. She holds a doctorate of defense and strategic studies from Missouri State University and is the author of Duty to Deter: American Nuclear Deterrence and the Just War Doctrine.