The Biden administration is tearing up the phone lines to prevent a meaningful Israeli retaliation after Hezbollah struck a football pitch in Majdal Shams, an overwhelmingly Druze town in the Golan, killing at least 12 children. The targeting of the town and Israel’s Druze community appears deliberate.
To seek to shield Hezbollah from Israeli retaliation is politically untenable, immoral, and strategically irresponsible.
What Hezbollah Did and Why
The Druze community in Israel is incredibly loyal and a crucial component of the ethnic and sectarian patchwork that is modern Israel. Hezbollah likely targeted the group to drive a wedge between it and broader Israeli society. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must hit back at Hezbollah hard to show every Druze man, woman, and child that their lives matter. The core job of any democratic government is to protect its citizenry. Netanyahu failed on October 7, 2023, not only because his political, military, and intelligence apparatus accepted the warning signs reported up the ladder but also because he was arrogant and grew accustomed to believing that pinpoint strikes to “mow the lawn” would be sufficient to deter a group ideologically primed for genocide.
For the United States or the United Nations to seek a ceasefire before meaningful Israeli retaliation is also strategically immoral. In 2006, a Hezbollah attack on Israel sparked war. As civilian casualties in Lebanon mounted, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan pressed Israel to accept a ceasefire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acquiesced on the condition that the government of Lebanon disarm all militias, including Hezbollah, and that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) act robustly to fulfill its mandate and prevent Hezbollah from rearming. Annan lied, and both the George W. Bush administration and its successors did little as Hezbollah again rearmed with even more precise and lethal weaponry. The Trump and Biden administrations made matters worse by allowing Hezbollah to profit from East Mediterranean gas. To demand that Israel accept the same lie twice is immoral, all the more so as first the Biden campaign and now Vice President Kamala Harris have allowed concern about Muslim opinion in Michigan and Minnesota to force recalibration of policy away from helping an ally under fire toward throwing designated terror group a lifeline.
Furthering the immorality was the inevitability of the Majdal Shams tragedy. Hezbollah has launched attacks on Israel almost daily, often even more frequently, since October 7, leading the Netanyahu government from evacuating tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in northern Israel. Washington would demand no other country accept such outrage on a daily basis. If Hezbollah can essentially take potshots at Israel without consequence, eventually it would score what, in its noxious calculus, would be a grand slam: a kindergarten, school bus or, in this case, playground and football pitch. Should Biden and Harris pressure Israel to stand down, the attacks will continue until Hezbollah scores another lucky strike.
Israel Must Respond
To allow Hezbollah to escape consequences is strategically irresponsible. Hezbollah will use any ceasefire to rearm. The group’s Iranian backers will interpret the scramble to prevent retaliation as a sign the West is weak, the United Nations corrupt, and Israel vulnerable. The result will be a far bloodier war.
The best policy for the United States would be to declare that it will side with Israel and any other ally always in the fight against terrorism.
Israel cannot simply mow the law. European elites might differentiate between Hezbollah “fighters” and “politicians,” but reality intervenes. During the Nuremberg Trials following World War II, the Allies tried not only German officers who had personally murdered Jews and other civilians, but also Nazi political leaders who enabled their terror and embraced their same ideology.
Accordingly, Israel should target every Hezbollah-run municipality and official in Lebanon, whether he lives in the south, Beirut, or the north. Just as Gazans today recognize that indulging Hamas carries a price in property and even life, Lebanese must recognize that any tolerance for Hezbollah will bring disaster down upon them.
The State Department should likewise designate Lebanon as a state sponsor of terror until it fulfills its basic responsibility to disarm Hezbollah. It is disingenuous to cry that it is too difficult after simultaneously collecting hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars saying that the Lebanese Armed Forces are capable and independent.
Peace will only come when Israel restores deterrence. The problem is not retaliation; it is that, hitherto, Israel has been afraid to inflict a level of destruction necessary to deter.
About the Author: Middle East Expert Dr. Michael Rubin
Dr. Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
