The Case for the Attack on Hezbollah Jihadists

The strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon sparked the predictable mix of confusion and moral posturing from those who believe they have the luxury of remaining unclear about the ethics of violence. As always, there’s an eagerness to engage in abstract debates, while sidestepping the real-world consequences of allowing terror groups to operate with impunity.

Thousands of electronic pagers—and later, hand-held radios—detonated in unison, killing dozens and wounding scores of jihadists. The sheer ingenuity of the operation is undeniable, yet predictably, it’s been condemned as a dangerous escalation, a violation of the so-called rules of war, and, most absurdly, as an act of terrorism. This criticism reflects a deep confusion about the nature of violence and intent. To equate a precision strike against combatants with indiscriminate terror is a moral failure—one that ignores the difference between targeting those who perpetuate violence and those who seek to avoid it.

If this covert operation was as precise as it seems, it stands as one of the most ethically sound acts of self-defense in recent memory. There are no “innocent” members of Hezbollah—a group whose only contributions to humanity have been the destruction of Lebanon and the perversion of suicide bombing. As a proxy of the tyrannical regime in Iran, they have been launching rockets into northern Israel since October 8th, unprovoked. Israel ended its occupation of Lebanon over 25 years ago. At the time, no operation had even begun in Gaza. Yet Hezbollah has been depopulating northern Israel with relentless fire for 11 months. To suggest that this response lacks justification is to willfully ignore reality.

If Israel successfully turned Hezbollah’s personal electronic equipment into bombs—without scattering them indiscriminately across Lebanon—they achieved a rare trifecta. First, they eliminated or injured the very individuals actively trying to kill them, while displacing 70,000 innocent Israeli civilians. Second, they identified surviving jihadists, making future targeting or capture easier—and likely diminishing their standing within Lebanese society. And third, they stripped away some of the allure of jihad. The promise of Paradise may be enticing, but the reality of life without fingers or eyes presents a very different calculation.

The moral legitimacy of this attack hinges on whether it was as precisely targeted as the evidence suggests. Tragically, reports indicate that four children were killed. But compared to almost any other military action, this mass sabotage resulted in remarkably few unintended casualties. It’s precisely the kind of calibrated strike that Israel’s critics have long claimed to endorse. And beyond the physical damage, it has dealt a significant psychological blow to one of the world’s most brutal jihadist organizations. If critics truly value minimizing collateral damage, this is exactly the kind of operation they should applaud.

Many argue that any act of retaliation, no matter how precise, only perpetuates the cycle of violence. They seem convinced that pacifism, in some form, must be the ultimate solution to Israel’s existential crisis. After all, how else will the killing end?

Some truly awful ideas masquerade as wisdom, and few do this as effectively—or as dangerously—as pacifism. It’s largely because of their pacifism that figures like Tolstoy and Gandhi were revered as sages. In this context, it’s worth remembering Gandhi’s advice to the Jews during the Holocaust: he suggested they should have walked willingly to their deaths, to awaken the moral conscience of the world. What a world of Gandhian pacifists would have done once their conscience was stirred, Gandhi never quite explained.

Pacifism is a counterfeit form of ethics, one that refuses to confront the harsh realities of the world. Instead, it fixates on the imagined moral purity of the pacifist—who, in truth, only pretends to be virtuous while leaving others to do the hard work of defending civilization from real threats. At its core, pacifism is nothing more than the willingness to die, and to let others die, in the face of evil. It’s moral posturing masquerading as principle.

There’s really only one question left: If you’re uncomfortable with an operation that precisely targeted jihadists actively seeking to commit genocide, then what kind of self-defense would you find acceptable from Israel? At what point does the right to defend against annihilation become legitimate in your view? If not this, then what?