Israel: virtuous and innocent

I am quite disgusted by the widespread condemnation of Israel's retaliatory strikes. These strikes are frequently characterized as "disproportionate". Actually I agree that they are disproportionate. They are disproportionately mild. A true defense would eliminate the Hezbollah threat and target the regime that sponsors Hezbollah: Iran. However, I'm glad that Israel is taking some action, however tepid it may be.

Those who wail that Israel is killing Lebanese civilians have no regard for Israeli civilians. Who should pay the price when Israel is attacked by Hezbollah or Hamas or other jihadists? Either Israel pays the price, or the nation that harbors those terrorists pays the price. Nations cannot go to war against individuals, nations can only go to war against other nations (this is why it matters what kind of nation you choose to live in). It is literally impossible for Israel to destroy Hezbollah without destroying infrastructure and civilian lives in the nation that harbors them. Either we let Israel do what is necessary to destroy Hezbollah, or we allow Hezbollah to destroy Israel. There is no middle ground.

I will grant that there are probably a lot of decent people in Lebanon who just want to work and raise their families. But sadly they have allowed a terrorist infestation in their country. And since they are unwilling or unable to remove it, Israel must. Either Israel has a right to defend itself or it does not. If it has a right to defend itself, that means it has a right to defend itself successfully - that is, to destroy its enemy. If Israel were to obey calls by the international community to show restraint in its retaliation, the party who benefits is Hezbollah. Anything less than total defeat is a victory for Hezbollah. Hezbollah knows it can hunker down, wait for the international community to condemn Israel to the point where Israel lets up its response, and then hit Israel again.

There is a lesson that must be learned in the Middle East, as Onkar Ghate writes here:

To achieve peace in the Middle East, as in any region, there is a necessary principle that every party must learn: the initiation of force is evil. And the indispensable means of teaching it is to ensure that the initiating side is defeated and punished. Decisive retaliatory force must be wielded against the aggressor. So long as one side has reason to think it will benefit from initiating force against its neighbors, war must result.

Israel and America are united in a war against a common enemy - and it isn't terrorism; terrorism is just a tactic of the enemy. The enemy has an ideology (Islamic Jihad) and an ideological center (Iran). Only the Americans and the Israelis consider this a battle worth fighting. However, these half battles that are currently being fought will not be enough to defeat this enemy. Only total war can win. This war must be fought like the world war that it is. Like in WW2, where a proud self confident America certain of its own virtue issued the following declaration to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: unconditionally surrender, or face extinction. We owe our freedom to the moral courage of the WW2 generation. To save civilization we need that kind of courage again.

Justice is on the side of the Israelis. There will never be peace in the Middle East until Israel and America wage a total war in self defense.