Prior to the recent elevation and extension of belligerence in the Middle East the conflict between Israel and Islamic terror had been a game of charades, in multiple ways. The endurance of armed confrontation and terrorism, and the specter of impending war, have ended this duplicitous game however, and exposed its illegitimacy.
Under the previous state there was an imaginary distinction between the Palestinian factions perpetrating acts of terror upon Israel and Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. Though Arafat encouraged, sponsored, and benefitted form the terror, he managed to publicly condemn specific acts of terror each time they occurred so as to assiduously maintain the charade that he was not responsible, but instead needed more power, more leniency, to bring the terror factions within his society to bear. As a product, he was never held to account by the international community for his actions and Israel was prevented from responding to the original and culpable source of the terror it lay victim to.
This distinction can be claimed no longer. The Palestinians perpetrating the terror, primarily Hamas, are now the democratically elected representatives and authority of the Palestinian people. Though many skeptical of democracy in the Middle East have pointed to the Palestinian elections as proof of its poisoned fruits, those elections have brought clarity to the state of affairs within the Palestinian territories and their approach to Israel. Terror is systemic of the Palestinian culture carefully incubated by the late terror-in-chief Arafat, and has become, officially and undeniably, state policy. Israel may now, at long last, respond accordingly.
The rising crises has also betrayed the longstanding charade that the impetus for terror against Israel was its occupation of disputed lands. Israel has vacated Gaza and southern Lebanon, but still Hamas and Hezbollah wage war against Israel. Why? As we all suspected, the cause of terror was never about occupation but Israel’s very existence. Short of Israel’s destruction nothing will appease these terrorist murders and induce them to lay down their arms, missiles, and bomb-laden belts.
Israel’s only refuge is to destroy those who would destroy them, precisely what they seem to be on the verge of doing in Lebanon. International pleas for another cease-fire and "moderation" are null. Cease-fires only give the terrorists respite and opportunity to prepare for their next round of murderous atrocities. Why would anyone want to extend this failed history and the tragic cycle of terror and violence?
Israel is entirely within its right to invade Lebanon. Hezbollah has entered Israel and captured Israeli soldiers, and they have used southern Lebanon as a base from which to launch attacks. Anyone who would prevent Israel from entering Lebanon and eliminating Hezbollah would deny Israel the right to defend itself and would grant Hezbollah the sanctuary to wage war against Israel with impunity.
Even further extension by Israel would be justified no less. Targeting Hamas and Hezbollah alone is tantamount to mowing the lawn—it’s only going to grow back. Neither of those respective organizations would be able to operate with the lethality they do were it not for their state patrons of Syrian and Iran. Through their proxies, both nations are able to wage war against Israel without actually waging war. This tactic is an attempt to obfuscate their involvement and to immunize themselves from being held to account, by both Israel and the international community, and it should not be tolerated.
Could anyone, in good conscience, prevent Israel from waging war against nations who unscrupulously wage war against it and, in regards to Iran, have promised to exterminate them?
If anyone could, or would, let it not be the United States. Iran specifically does not just wage war against Israel, for Israel, due to it’s standing in the region as the lone, western democracy, is, in effect, only a proxy for democratic civilization, for whom the United States is the leading standard-bearer and representative.
Iran’s belligerence has been poorly hidden, and it only grows bolder as the world fecklessly responds to its nuclear development. A confrontation with the west is all but inevitable, and should the Israelis decide to confront the Iranian threat to its existence before it possesses a nuclear capacity the United States should stand alongside them. As Iran would destroy Israel, it would also destroy, and is actively seeking to destroy, democracy and stability in the Middle East. Iran’s apocalyptic ambitions and visions of its own place and mission in the region could not be more dangerous if allowed to burgeon.
Diplomacy itself may not be dead, but with Iran categorically determined to acquire nuclear capability the possibility of diplomacy is only viable in regards to the international community coming together to stymie Iran. It is possible, I suppose, that crippling sanctions could bring down the regime. But if those sanctions failed to work, diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake must be abandoned.
If a nuclear Iran is as "unacceptable" as everyone says it is—and it is—than the international community, or at least those within the community responsible enough, must do what is necessary to prevent it. That burden should not be Israel’s to shoulder alone. A nuclear Iran threatens all of democratic civilization, not just Israel, and all of democratic civilization must be prepared to stop it.
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