When Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers left southern Lebanon in 2000, they were derided by locals as occupiers. Now, on the eve of a ground war in Lebanon against Hezbollah terrorists, Israeli soldiers may be seen as liberators.
For the past week, the IDF has pounded Hezbollah positions, taking out rocket launchers and weapons stockpiles. It has also launched targeted strikes against Hezbollah leaders.
And, of course, there was the mysterious pager attack last week, which killed dozens of Hezbollah officials and wounded thousands more, while also disrupting the terrorists’ ability to communicate with each other.
There may never be a better opportunity to attack than right now.
And Israel would be well within its rights to do so.
Since October 8, Hezbollah has been sending missiles, rockets, and explosive drones into Israel, killing 49 people and forcing the evacuation of 63,500 residents of border communities.
The attack, in solidarity with the Hamas terrorists who had murdered 1,200 Israelis the day before, was unprovoked.
As Israel notes, it has no territorial dispute with Lebanon. Hezbollah simply wants to destroy it, on behalf of Iran.
Hezbollah reminded the world of that intention when it fired a missile at Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The missile was intercepted by the David’s Sling system, but it could have killed many people if it had continued on its trajectory.
The Iranian-backed terrorists who fired the missile might have thought they were putting on a display of strength. But if anything, the missile united Israelis and made clear that border towns are not alone: Tel Aviv is also at war.
With that missile, Hezbollah arguably sealed its fate.
Officially, Israel’s war aim is to push Hezbollah back from the border to the Litani River, several kilometers north, in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006.
That region corresponds to the “security zone” that Israel established near the border after the First Lebanon War in 1982, when it invaded the country to stop Palestinian guerrillas from shelling Israeli communities across the border.
After years of counterinsurgency, Israel pulled out of Lebanon unilaterally in 2000, after Syria proved unwilling to negotiate a withdrawal. Hezbollah opened fire as Israeli soldiers left, to create a lasting impression of Israeli retreat.
That withdrawal under fire arguably encouraged the second Palestinian intifada later that year, a bloody terrorist spree that left over 1,000 Israelis — and many more Palestinians — dead, and also killed Israeli-Palestinian talks.
In 2006, Israel was taken by surprise when Hezbollah launched a daring cross-border raid — again, in solidarity with Hamas — in which it kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers.
Israel, almost in desperation, bombed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon; its ground troops were ill-equipped for the fight that followed. Amid international condemnation of civilian casualties and pressure from the George W. Bush administration, Israel was pressed to accept Resolution 1701 and a ceasefire.
Since then, the Syrian regime, which used to dominate Lebanon, collapsed and is now essentially propped up by Iran and Russia.
The Iranian regime invested billions of dollars in arming and training Hezbollah, and helping it build a tunnel network far more sophisticated than that of Hamas in Gaza, reportedly with help from North Korea. Hezbollah also took over the Shiite and Christian villages of southern Lebanon, and came to dominate overall Lebanese politics.
While celebrated throughout the Arab and Muslim world as the one military force that had compelled an Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah was soon detested by locals, especially in southern Lebanon, but also throughout the country.
Hezbollah kidnapped innocent civilians and held them for ransom; it forced civilians to house weapons in their homes; and like Hamas, it diverted resources from the fragile economy to stockpile weapons and build tunnels.
Unlike Gaza, the local population is not Palestinian and is not implacably opposed to Israel. Thousands of locals actually fled to Israel after the 2000 withdrawal, and live freely in the Jewish state. Many wish to go back home.
Now, there may be an opportunity. Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says that he us open to diplomatic options, diplomacy has failed. Even if Hezbollah agreed to move away from the border, as it is legally required to do already, that would be seen as a defeat and would lead to the rapid collapse of the terror group’s hold on the Lebanese state. So it must fight — and in doing so, it will provoke stronger Israeli responses. It is going to lose.
The IDF has prepared for nearly two decades for this conflict. It has better intelligence on Hezbollah than it did on Hamas. It has better and more precise weapons. And the Israeli public, divided on everything else, supports a war.
The goal — unlike in Gaza — will not be to destroy Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, or even as a political group. Rather, Israel’s goal — as stated repeatedly by the Israeli government — is simply to make sure its northern residents can live in peace. That means pushing Hezbollah back across the Litani River, which is the first geographically defensible boundary north of the current international border. It will be a hard fight but is also a winnable one.
The long-term goal must be to end Iran’s support for Hezbollah and other terrorist proxies that are solely responsible for the lingering chaos in the region. Many Arab states already have peace agreements with Israel or are willing to sign them.
With Iran unable to fund or arm its terrorist network abroad, peace will again begin to flourish. But that must await a future U.S. administration willing to isolate the Iranian regime instead of trying to make deals with it.
Talk of a ceasefire, prompted by France and by the Biden administration, is absurdly premature. The pathetic text of the proposal does not even mention Hezbollah. The world should tell Hezbollah to obey Resolution 1701, or be destroyed. It should be slapping sanctions on Iran. Instead, Israel is fighting alone. But it is not just fighting for itself.
In victory, Israel can free Lebanon. As it does, it should fight carefully, and plant the seeds of future friendship.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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