The War in the North

This is the time to strike the head of the snake

As if it wasn’t enough with the trauma and ongoing bloodletting involving the Gaza war, October 7^th and the hostage situation Israel has also had an ongoing military conflict with the terrorist organization of Hezbollah in South Lebanon. In solidarity with Hamas Hezbollah has tried to infiltrate the north of Israel by land but mainly been engaged in attacking the north of Israel with artillery fire and rockets, targeting civilians (like the Druze village of Majd El Shams, where 12 innocent boys were killed) and military positions. The fighting has forcing up to a hundred thousand Israeli civilians residing in the north to leave their homes until the area has been deemed safe to live in again (10 % of Israel’s territory). This has now been going on for close to a year and Israeli citizens are still not able to return to their homes.

Hezbollah started this war with Israel, for no good reason. There is no concession that Israel can reasonably do to appease Hezbollah in the long term.

Hezbollah is a terrorist, Islamist and Anti-Semitic organization dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel unilaterally withdrew from almost all Southern Lebanon in the year 2000 and has in return had at least two wars with Hezbollah since. Indeed, the manner of the withdrawal, just as in the case of Gaza, is what many Israelis question today. How come Israel withdrew unilaterally?

The PLO (The Palestinian Liberation Organization) were previously based in Lebanon and waging intense terror campaigns against Israeli civilians from the country, the most infamous of them were the Maalot incident were 28 Israeli children were murdered in cold blood by the Palestinian terrorists.

The terrorist organization of Hezbollah had been fighting Israeli troops since the mid-eighties up until the year of 2000 when Israel, under Ehud Barak’s government, decided to withdraw Israeli forces. Over the years hundreds upon hundreds of casualties among Israeli soldiers occurred. The original objective of invading Lebanon was to oust the PLO from there. This objective had by long been achieved.

Israel unilaterally withdrew and this greatly strengthened Hezbollah, which was credited with ousting Israel from the country. In a very similar fashion to what transpired in Gaza, the void was filled by Iranian-backed terrorist groups. In the case of Gaza it was the Hamas and in the case of South Lebanon it was the Hezbollah.

The pros and cons of withdrawing from South Lebanon

By withdrawing from South Lebanon in the year 2000 Israel ended up protecting its soldiers from incessant military attacks in South Lebanon, but instead the country ended up with a situation where hundreds of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel and cannot go back as long as Hezbollah’s rocket attacks continue.

The last round of rocket attacks has targeted major cities in the north like Haifa and Kiryat Shmona.

The root cause of the conflict

Iran initiated a war against Israel through its proxies to obliterate the state of Israel in many small steps and Israel’s self-defense is deemed as aggression by ministers from the newly elected Labour government in the UK.

Labour initiated an arms embargo against Israel and Germany is thinking about following suit

Instead of all civilized nations of the world applauding Israel for its perseverance, ingenuity and bravery standing up to the aggressors, the world decides to not differentiate between aggression and self-defense, between legitimate warfare and acts of terror, between democracy and dictatorship, between Western civilization and Islamism. This is a world where nihilism, value relativism and Anti-Semitism rule the agenda.

Campaigning against Israeli defense against acts of aggression against its civilians is just another aspect of the war against the Jewish State, in so far as all wars are waged both on the battlefield and in the public relations arena; in diplomatic circles, in the established media, in social media, and in the intelligence community.

The long game

People are naturally despondent with the ongoing war, and this is understandable if you’re living in Israel. But our enemies want to wear us down psychologically as much as physically. We cannot let them do that.

In a para-military organization commanders possess know-how and experience and many different capabilities that are not easily replaced.

Ultimately it is the Lebanese government which has to decide to be an independent country that lives safely with Israel at its border, and to do that it has to rid itself of the Iranian evil in its midst.

Israel has to play the long game here with Iran in its sights.

Iran is the head of the snake and is using its puppets of inflict damage on Israel. Israel ends up playing a game of whack-a-mole against all the proxies of Iran.

It’s not sustainable to have to have a conflict like this with Hezbollah every ten years or less, with rockets raining down and people forced to leave their homes and having to enter South Lebanon and staying there for who knows how long. We’ve been through that scenario already.

Israel is already being attacked and is in a hot war with Iran and was also directly attacked by Iran a few months back. There this is the time to strike at the main source of revenue for Iran which is its oil. If Israel can blow up the oil refineries in Iran it would hurt the Iranian economy badly which will make the regime even less popular than it is now among its own population. The regime might retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz where much of the oil traffic to other countries go, but this would likely elicit a response from the USA and Saudi Arabia.

If Iran’s economy is damaged than Hezbollah will grow weaker and the Iranian regime will grow weaker.

Israel has to utilize this opportunity, when it is under attack, to address the root cause of the conflict-Iran. In more peaceful times this will not be possible.