Its Escalation….No Other Word for It

If yesterday in Israel had not been so very sad, the words of Hizballah and Iran would have been laughable.

A rocket manufactured in Iran, one that among our current next-door enemies only Hizballah has in their arsenal, landed in a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights killing 12 children between the ages of 10-20 and injuring dozens more. It was the single deadliest Hizballah attack on northern Israel since fighting there began in October.

After first claiming that a Falaq-1 rocket fired from Lebanon was the culprit, overnight a senior spokesperson for the Iranian-backed Hizballah claimed they were not the ones who fired the missile after all. Really? Hamas doesn’t have one, the Syrians don’t have one, only Hizballah has that type of missile.

No doubt they did not want to claim it for fear of a massive uprising by the Druze community in Lebanon given that all the casualties here were Druze. Druze, by the way, who are full Israeli citizens, who join the IDF and who have buried their share of casualties in the war against Hamas.

And then Iran comes out with a warning that Israel better not respond to this or there will be dire consequences. Seriously? Makes one wonder what kind of an alternative universe these people are inhabiting? Clearly where they believe they can do whatever they want and that we are prohibited from responding.

Of course, while we did get off some rockets pointed at the area from where Saturdays attacked was launched, a stronger response needed to wait until our Prime Minister, who should never have left here in the first place, could not convene the security cabinet until he returned here this afternoon.

And before my readers climb all over me for having said that, yes, it was a good speech in Congress, he made his point, he represented Israel well, but yet another crisis developed and he was not here to manage it.

For me, actually, the highlight of his speech was seeing two of the four IDF soldiers in the gallery, who had both lost limbs in the fighting in Gaza. I looked at them, especially the one standing tall who had lost a leg which you would not have known had you not been told, and felt so much pride in what we do here. Two IDF soldiers, each of whom had lost a limb some time in the last nine months, both fitted with working prostheses and rehabilitated, all within that nine month envelope. Truly amazing and something we can be proud of while we share with them our sadness about their sacrifice on our behalf.

But back to today…..there is a clear escalation going on with Hizballah having been allowed to move our northern security zone into Israel itself, forcing 80,000 citizens to evacuate their homes, many of which have since been destroyed while putting those who have remained at risk for their lives. It is encouraging to hear politicians worldwide telling us to “finish the job” as presumptive presidential candidate Kamala Harris said on Thursday after her meeting with the Prime Minister, but yet nothing changes.

Frightening as it is to say, as neither of these options will be very pleasant, we should either pull out all the stops and finish the job whatever that really means or agree that we can’t do it and settle for less than what we want…..knowing full well we will back into this again sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the escalation will continue and at some point, a larger war will happen in any event.