He couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned.
For nearly a year, Israel has made it clear it will not tolerate Hezbollah’s daily rocket and missile attacks, which have driven 60,000 Israelis from their homes near the border with Lebanon.
The blows the Jewish state delivered to Hamas after the October 7 invasion reinforced the message that Hezbollah would get its turn in the crosshairs unless it stopped.
But Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who survived many conflicts with Israel, sees the past as prologue and the international community, led by the unscrupulous American president, will force Israel to stop.
No doubt Nasrallah’s rulers in Iran agree, so daily attacks continue with the aim of diverting Israeli forces and resources from Gaza and making northern Israel uninhabitable.
The impact on Israel was devastating. The nation is failing to protect its citizens and its borders are receding. After Hamas’s surprise attack in the south, the situation became intolerable, politically and militarily.
Israel’s first major response was the sensational beeper-go-boom operation, which delivered a military and psychological blow to Hezbollah.
The attack showed the depth of Israeli intelligence and its ability to carry out unimaginable operations.
When Nasrallah foolishly ignored it and continued to attack, Israel upped the ante by killing its closest commander.
After Bibi’s UN speech
The elimination of everyone around him makes me wonder if Nasrallah was spared because he was an Israeli agent.
When I suggested as much to my American friend to live temporarily in Israel, he replied with an informed response: Nasrallah has been allowed to live, he said, because Israel wanted to see the utter destruction he had caused.
The hope is that they will realize it’s their turn if they don’t call off the attack.
He didn’t, and now he’s dead, too.
It is no coincidence that Israel pulled the trigger shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blistering speech at the UN.
“There is no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu said, as delegations from several Arab countries and others left the room.
After noting that Hezbollah has fired 8,000 rockets and missiles into Israel since October 8, he warned that “Israel has tolerated this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I came here today just enough.”
Boom!
Israel’s methods of warfare and diplomacy should serve as a lesson to American and European leaders. Westerners usually laugh, then they are more horrified and then . . . it’s okay, it can’t be.
Malign actors, especially Middle Eastern jihadists trained and directed by Iran, do not take the threat seriously. It was Osama bin Laden who noted that most people prefer a strong horse to a weak one.
Terrorists may perceive President Biden and Kamala Harris as weak horses. He felt that America was so desperate for peace that it would abandon its friends and mortgage its future.
This has proven to be especially true this election year, with Democrats trying to buy votes from American antisemites by hobbling the Israeli military.
Fortunately, Israel is marching to its own drummer. Because there is no room for error, be clear about your goals and don’t make idle threats.
Most importantly, as history knows, he didn’t even consider his survival as his best friend. Netanyahu has many flaws, but believes strongly in America’s irreconcilability.
Reports that the US was informed of the strike on Nasrallah only while the plane was in the air means that the strike was non-negotiable. It also lets America off the hook for any responsibility.
Peace through strength
Thus, America gets no credit for the joy in Syria and elsewhere over Nasrallah’s death.
Imagine Arabs celebrating Israeli attacks on other Arabs.
There is no indication that Israel has discovered a unique new approach to the enemy. Peace through strength has been the posture of courageous leaders throughout the ages.
The flip side is also true – weakness invites aggression. As the old Roman saying goes, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
Israel has been forced to do that since its establishment, but the situation is even more complicated now that Iran has opened a war on four fronts. In addition to Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and terror units in the West Bank are trying to create the impression that Israel is trapped.
Meanwhile, Biden and most of Europe have turned their desire for Middle East peace into a demand that Israel silence its enemies.
Instead of directing anger at Iran and its murderous proxies for Hamas attacks, Biden and our NATO allies have spent much of the past year increasing pressure on Israel.
He said nothing about Hezbollah, as if Israel only had to attack its citizens for the good of the team. what team?
Certainly not the UN team, which has fueled antisemitism in the region and encouraged delegates in New York to find endless reasons to condemn Israel – and only Israel.
Unfortunately, this is not new, but what is different is that this White House accepted the brutality of Hamas who took hostages to Gaza, some of whom are American citizens. Instead of setting a deadline for Hamas to release them, Biden and Harris set a deadline for Israel to agree to a ceasefire.
He was quick to blame Israel for the many civilian deaths, and refused to demand that Hamas surrender and stop hiding in schools, hospitals and mosques.
Had Netanyahu agreed to the lopsided terms offered by Biden, Hamas would have been spared and strengthened by the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were convicted of murder.
That will rejuvenate Hamas and boost its stature, putting it in a position to regain control of the Gaza government.
And Hezbollah will always remain free to turn on or off the spigot of terror at will. The porous ceasefire will explode into another war with Israel when Iran sees an advantage.
2-country nonsense
The most absurd aspect of the past year has been the White House’s willingness to claim that peace will come when the Palestinians have their own state.
There is no historical or factual basis for these claims. Gaza is a Palestinian state that became a state of terror when Hamas seized power.
As the leader made it clear, will repeat the horror of October 7 again and again if given the chance.
Hezbollah is also determined to continue attacking Israel – until Friday.
The important question is what Iran does next. If the White House was smart, it wouldn’t wait for an answer.
However, Biden should make it clear that any attack on Israel will not be tolerated.
But only if he is ready to show that he is serious is there any hope that the guns will fall silent.
