For almost a week now, Israel has been bombing Lebanon in retaliation for attacks by Hezbollah terrorists. Last week, a Hezbollah raid across the Lebanon border resulted in the death of several Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two. In response, Israeli warplanes began bombing targets inside Lebanon, including the runway and fuel depot at the Beirut airport, the main road from Lebanon into Syria, and the headquarters of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Throughout the campaign, Hezbollah has been launching unguided missiles into Israel.
In response to the heating up of this conflict, the international community is divided along its usual lines, with the Israel-bashers bashing the Israeli response as being too harsh, and President Bush coming out on the side of Israel, stating unequivocally that Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorist attacks.
I've heard several arguments against Israel. The most common argument is that Israel's response is disproportionate to Hezbollah's initial attack. Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret: this is war. By crossing the border and attacking Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah (who, by the way, is officially represented in the Lebanese government) committed an act of war. In war, the goal is to kill the enemy. The idea that Israel should have taken two Hezbollah soldiers to trade for the two Israeli soldiers that Hezbollah kidnapped so that the response would be "proportionate" is just plain stupid. Israel has given concession after concession after concession in the interests of peace. In fact, the territory in Southern Lebanon that Hezbollah is now using to attack Israel used to be know as "the occupied terriroties." Israel no longer occupies Southern Lebanon. They gave it back. Israel no longer occupies the Gaza Strip. They gave it back...and even then, after the leftist peaceniks pressured Israel into giving Gaza back, those same peaceniks then turned around and criticized Israel for removing the Israelis who were living in Gaza. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Israel has shown conclusively through the years that they want peace. After the Six Day War, Israel gave the Sinai Penninsula back to Egypt in the interests of peace. Since then, there has been peace between Israel and Egypt...because Egypt has refrained from attacking Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah, however, are not interested in peace. It's happened time and time again: the terrorists will attack. Israel will respond. The peaceniks will demand a cease-fire. Israel will give concessions in the interests of peace. Then, a few months later, the cycle begins again: the terrorists attack.
For the peace-loving hippies, the only "proportionate" response Israel could possibly give is the one that involves caving to the terrorists' demands. In this case, that means the release of thousands of Arab prisoners being held by Israel for various crimes. Here's a little history lesson: in 2004, Hezbollah kidnapped an Israeli businessman. In order to resolve the situation, Israel released over 400 Arab prisoners in exchange for his safe return. Given the current situation, the question of, "did it solve anything?" is a resounding "NO!" The only thing that Israel's caving in to the terrorists' demands did was to teach the terrorists that Israel will cave in to their demands. And now, two years later, Hezbollah is pulling the same stunt, this time demanding the release of thousands of Arab prisoners in exchange for two kidnapped soldiers. Want to talk about "disproportionate response?" Israel's concessions have been disproportionate to the concessions of the Arab terrorists. Israel's actions now are justified because the terrorists have shown that no amount of concessions or appeasement will bring peace. This leaves Israel with one solution: kill the terrorists.
Another common argument is that Israel's military attacks are unjustified because the Israelis are killing Palestinian civilians. While this is true, the real question is, are the Israelis targetting Palestinian civilians? The answer is no. In the past, and throughout this current campaign, Israel has gone out of its way to attack only strategic targets. As a matter of strategy, Hezbollah and Hamas leaders have taken to surrounding themselves with women and children, and hiding military assets (weapons and munitions) close to civilian targets. Many of the unguided missiles that have been launched at Israel have been coming from Lebanese homes. In order for Israel to take out the missile sites, the homes also must be destroyed. We even saw this strategy in the Iraq war, when "insurgents" were attacking our soldiers from mosques and hospitals. There seems to be a general consensus from the peacenik left that modern wars should be fought in a politically correct manner...and the proliferation of television news cameras throughout modern war zones has the effect of forcing nations into these kinds of ineffective campaigns. But I submit to you this: if TV news cameras had been present in the major battles of World War II, and those images were shown on American television, the people then would have been revolted by what they saw. They would have demanded more restraint. They might have even demanded a more "proportionate" response as Allied forces proceeded to kick Hitler's butt. And if Allied leaders had caved in to such demands, we would have lost that war and Europe and North Africa, and who knows where else, would be under Nazi control today. In fact, the reason that America lost the Vietnam war was largely because the American public lost the will to fight after seeing images of the war on TV. But let's face it: as long as the world community demands politically correct wars, none of the world's greatest problems will be solved. The problem of Islamic terrorism will never be solved by giving in to the demands of terrorists. The problem of a nuclear Iran will never be solved by trying to appease Ahmadenijad. The problem of the Iraqi 'insurgency' will never be solved by placating the insurgent terrorists by pulling our troops out of Iraq. These actions will only accomplish two things: they will delay conflict for a short time, and they will make conflict all the worse when it finally arrives. These hard-line Islamofascist terrorists, including HAMAS, Hezbollah, Ahmadenijad, Al Qaida, and the Iraqi insurgency, will only be satisfied with two things: the elimination of Israel, and the elimination of the United States. And then, after they have accomplished those two goals, they will move on to their final goal: turning the rest of the world into an Islamic state.
So to all of those Leftists out there who love peace so much, I say this: if you truly want Israel to continue placating the terrorists instead of killing them, take this advice: go out and buy yourself a Koran and a prayer rug, because if you can't show the Islamofascists how very Muslim you are when they roll into town, you'll only be left with one choice: convert or die.
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