Ceasefire now???

Israel conducted a massive targeted bombing in a Beirut neighborhood, killing Hezbollah chief Nasrallah and several Hezbollah leaders. The world is a better place because they are gone. The world should rejoice.

But much of the world has reservations about killing these terrorists and crippling Hezbollah. Russia condemned Israel. Palestinian President Abbas called for Israel’s expulsion from the UN. Hezbollah’s sponsor and chief funder, Iran, is absolutely appalled.

Even the so-called “enlightened” world is ambivalent. Before Nasrallah’s death but after the killing of many of his commanders and after Israel began its intense bombing of Beirut, the US and France called for a 21-day truce so that negotiations could occur.

Since Nasrallah’s death the UN Secretary-General, as he does whenever Israel acts to defend itself, has expressed his alarm at the violence. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have welcomed Nasrallah being sent on his way to his 72 virgins, but they have also said now it is time to stop fighting.

One would have hoped the President would have said now that Hezbollah is reeling from its defeats, now is the time to finish it off or at least to do as much damage as possible. Macron has called on Biden to pressure Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire, not Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran.

One wonders why the Western leaders were so intent on a truce and negotiations prior to Nasrallah and his comrades’ demise, and one wonders why they continue to be so insistent now, despite Israel’s successes. I don’t recall such interest in negotiations when the West was pursuing Al Qaeda and ISIS.

I argued early in the Gaza War that, when it comes to attacks by terrorist groups on Israel, the world acts as if terrorism is a normal and accepted behavior, and that negotiations are the appropriate and judicious response.

By treating the situation as normal and expected, the world encourages the terrorists to expect their terrorism to work, and it often does. The same dynamic is now being urged on Israel by the United States and much of the rest of the “free world.”

To stop the fighting there is no need to negotiate, unless the intention is to concede something to Hezbollah. All that is necessary is to enforce an agreement already negotiated.

To conclude the 2006 Lebanon War (fought because of Hezbollah terror after Israel withdrew from its 18-year-old buffer zone in Southern Lebanon, established because of PLO terror), the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701.

The resolution requires that the only military presence below Lebanon’s Litani River, which is about 18 miles from Israel’s border, be that of the Lebanese Army. It requires that Hezbollah be disarmed below the Litani River. The UN, the US, the EU, nobody, ever enforced the resolution.

In the ensuing 18 years, primarily with Iran’s support, Hezbollah completely militarized the area, embedding arms and missiles in and under civilian areas. About 150,000 precision missiles are aimed at Israel.

For the last 18 years Israel has played a cat and mouse game of trying to prevent Iran from shipping in more arms and missiles. It has endured periodic terrorist attacks and missiles.

Israelis now recognize that Hezbollah could conduct an attack like Hamas’ of October 7th but on a far larger scale. They have repeatedly announced their intention to do so. No country can live with that threat on its border.

In short, Israelis cannot live with anything less than what was previously agreed to in Resolution 1701. Moreover, to agree to something less would simply reward Hezbollah and Iran for their terrorism. It is not negotiations that are necessary.  It is compliance and enforcement that are necessary.

If Hezbollah did not comply with, and if the UN and the rest of the world did not enforce Resolution 1701, what confidence should the 60,000 Israelis forced out of their homes in Israel’s north have that another agreement will be treated any differently? Because it would require less of Hezbollah?

If the West is not willing to stand up to a terrorist organization and its sponsor, Iran, both of whom have repeatedly pledged to destroy Israel, and if the West is not willing to enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, Israel must.

The West appears to be under the naïve belief that evil can be contained, that the day of reckoning can be postponed or avoided. Israel cannot afford such naivete.

In a September 19 targeted attack in Beirut, Israel killed 14 Hezbollah commanders, including Ibrahim Aqil. As reported by the Washington Post on September 21, “US officials have said he [Aqil] was a principal member of a terrorist cell that carried out a wave of violence that included the bombing on the Marine barracks in October 1983, the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut that April that killed 63 people, and the kidnapping of German and American hostages in Lebanon.”

Over the 41 years since the mass murder of US citizens by Aqil, the US undoubtedly knew or could have discovered Aqil’s location. Yet through seven presidencies, four Republican and three Democrat, he lived untouched.

It makes one wonder what exactly President Biden means when he says that the Hamas terrorists who murdered Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin will pay for their crimes.

As mentioned above, on September 19 Israel targeted a residential building in Beirut, killing 14 Hamas commanders planning an October 7^–like attack on northern Israel. Of course, the media and Israel’s critics focused on the fact that “innocent civilians” were killed and injured in the attack on the residential building,

And when Israel eliminated Nasrallah and his compatriots by bombing the residential buildings under which Hezbollah headquarters are located, many in the media and amongst Israel’s critics again focused on and attacked Israel for the loss of innocent lives.

Not one media outlet I read or listened to asked why a terrorist organization meets in residential buildings surrounded by noncombatants.

Israel’s Bond-like explosions of the pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members, besides ingenious, was an exemplar of a targeted attack. Like in almost any military operation, no matter how well executed, some innocent civilians, including a few children of Hezbollah members, were unfortunately injured or killed.

Of course, the media and Israel’s critics focused on those children of the Hezbollah members. Not surprisingly, few if any of the media or the critics asked why Hezbollah members would wear devices used in their terrorist activities around their children.