Crisis in Lebanon

By ImageBank4U @Adobe Stock

Israel Deserves America’s Support

In a series of ferocious attacks, Israel is aiming to decapitate Iran’s much stronger proxy in Lebanon: Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah has been provoked like never before by Israel and may be tempted to unleash its firepower,” announces Sky News, a division of Comcast.

“Ridiculous,” asserts National Review editors. Have you not been following the news?

Since the morning Hamas invaded Israel to massacre 1,200 people and take 250 hostages nearly a year ago, Hezbollah has sent thousands of projectiles into Israel, triggering the evacuation of 80,000 residents of northern Israel and putting the major Israeli cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv on high alert.

Hezbollah was founded in the early 1980s, it’s goal then as it is now is to carry out terrorist attacks. It was responsible for the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. military personnel. In the 2006 war against Israel, Hezbollah gained battlefield experience fighting on the side of Iran and Russia in support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The war in Syria also helped clear the way for Hezbollah to import additional higher-range ballistic missiles, as well as more-precise anti-tank missiles.

Hezbollah, considered the world’s largest terrorist organization, now controls large swaths of southern Lebanon. Some outlets report that Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal that was believed to contain 200,000 rockets, missiles, and drones as of October 7.

It is the primary means through which Iran threatens devastating consequences were Israel to take preemptive military action against Iran’s nuclear program.

As Hezbollah continued to launch rockets into Israel, making life intolerable to Israelis, Israel was forced to take more aggressive action. Recently, Hezbollah terrorists were killed or injured when pagers and walkie-talkies (used for communications amongst terrorists) blew up.

Israel has not officially claimed responsibility. The combination of tech-savvy, intelligence work, and sheer chutzpah involved in pulling off the attack, however, leaves little doubt.

The Biden Administration’s Muddled Response: Empty Statements

So far has been more of the same muddled mess to which we’ve become accustomed — empty statements about the right of Israel to defend itself coupled with lectures about avoiding escalation and seeking a diplomatic solution. This is consistent with a fanciful strategy first advanced by Barack Obama, and embraced by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, to pursue diplomacy with Iran in hopes that it will empower ever-elusive “moderates.” Instead, the policies have only encouraged more malign and destabilizing actions from the mullahs who actually run the country with an iron fist.

That disruption to Hezbollah’s communications network has been followed up by the most pulverizing air strikes against the terrorists’ leaders and their arsenal in the past year.

In just the past week, Hezbollah lost several top commanders, including operations head Ibrahim Aqil (who was wanted by the U.S. government for involvement in the Marine barracks bombing) and the leader of the rocket and missile division, Ibrahim Qubaisi.

Why Support Israel

For as long as the State Department has maintained an official list, it has designated Hezbollah a terrorist group. Neutralizing /defanging a group that has been responsible for the deaths of “hundreds of Americans” would go a long way in bringing stability and peace to the region.