The Appropriate Disproportionate Response

The moment Jacques Chirac, president of France, pronounced Israel's actions in Lebanon at the early stages of the war to be "disproportionate", a new school of prejudice was born. Today, the fatuous claim of Israeli disproportionate action has established itself as the new canard to level at Israel when it acts on its right to defend itself. More so, the charge has provided an intellectual umbrella for Israel-bashers, fertilizing the campaign to demonize Israel, and further portraying Israel as the consummate cold-blooded aggressor in the eyes of the world.

There can be no doubt that the accusation of 'proportionality' has caught on in the mainstream. A quick perusal of  social-political journals of Europe show a steady stream of insinuations and outright accusations about Israel being guilty of war crimes. It's safe to say that the argument of disproportion has become the knee-jerk mantra of Europe's intelligentsia in its discussion of the war.

The disproportionality argument is a simplistic one. It moves from the premise that Israel's response in Lebanon was too harsh in view of the threat, to the quick and absolutist conclusion that because of this Israel's overall actions against Hezbollah were illegitimate.

This argument, however, begs many questions, all of which go unanswered by those making the disproportionate response claim. The first of these questions regards the threat that Israel was responding to. It requires that we ask who, what, and how dangerous is this threat that was on the receiving end of the so called "disproportionate" action. Threat perception is the cornerstone in an argument of proportionality; it is the glue that holds this pointed accusation together.

Proscribed actions depends on the severity of the threat. For example. if someone or something is attempting to kill you, then neutralizing that threat, cannot, by any sensible person, be considered a disproportionate action. Therefore, it becomes paramount when discussing the do's and don'ts of the 2006 Lebanon War to actually consider what Hezbollah is and what are its goals and grievances.

One will discern quickly that such considerations of the Hezbollah threat, becomes a major stumbling block to those who accuse Israel of rejecting proportionality when it battled Hezbollah. It becomes apparent that the advocates of the proportionality argument tend to conveniently gloss over anything relating to what Hezbollah actually is, carefully shoving this subject to the fringes of the discourse and focusing primarily on Israeli actions in war. This is all done in an obvious attempt to minimize the Hezbollah threat, which is crucial to the equation of proportionality. This dogmatic denial of taking Hezbollah to task for their tactical barbarism that started the war (kidnapping), and the horror found in the mimicking of a " V-2" rocket strategy, perfected by the Nazis in its war with Britain, leads one to the conclusion that anyone with any sort of intellectual honesty would patently refuse such an imbalanced characterization of the Lebanon War. And yet the opposite has occurred.

A review of the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel can be made by analyzing Hezbollah's  capabilities and ideological temperament.

Hezbollah, is in essence a highly trained wing of the Iranian army. On the geo-political level, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy that plays the spoiler and threat-maker at Iran's beckoning. It consists of between 30,000-50,000 active members, who are armed, trained and commanded by Iran. Hezbollah's ideology is a virulent strain of militant Islam, and in practice they adopt a political system similar to fascism. As all persons under Hezbollah's rule are tools for Islamic domination, it should be no surprise that ordinary citizens in southern Lebanon host rockets in their backyard and bunkers under their homes. Hezbollah is armed with highly advanced military platforms, beginning with an array of rockets numbering in the thousands, equipped with UAVs (unmanned ariel vehicles), an engineering corps to build its fortifications, and a highly motivated intelligence network. When riffling through the data, one begins to realize the potential damage that Hezbollah can and does inflict when it is so inclined. Given all this, its very difficult to ignore the fact that Hezbollah can no longer be classified as a quasi-militia since it is actually a highly trained and well equipped army.

The capabilities of Hezbollah are not the only important factors when calibrating the proper threat perception and response. Determining the motivations and goals of an organization reveals where the accumulated power of that organization will deploy its capabilities. Therefore, we must indentify Hezbollah's grievances and critical motivations in order to gague whether it will be belligerent and dangerous to Israel.

Hezbollah, as mentioned above, takes its marching orders from Iran. It's therefore  sensible to assume: like father, like son. Iran's desire for regional destabilization and Muslim domination of the Middle East is mirrored by Hezbollah's recorded actions toward Lebanese Christian's and the neighboring Jewish State.

Hezbollah leaves no room for argument and even less for discussion. It has stated repeatedly and quite brazenly to the world that its primary mission is the utter rejection and destruction of any form of Jewish sovereignty. In an interview with the Washington Post the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, stated in no uncertain terms, "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called 'Israel.' I consider its presence both unjust and unlawful. That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle." He said more recently, "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel".

Ever since the Israeli withdrawal from S. Lebanon in the late nineties, Hezbollah has significantly consolidated itself within Lebanese governance. The advent of the formal power-sharing arrangement, finalized in the 2008 Doha Agreement, effectively grants Hezbollah a veto in the Lebanese political sphere. There can be no doubt today, that Lebanon is Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is Lebanon. What was once a Lebanon that hosted the Iranian guerilla faction in the early 80's, has insidiously advanced into a situation where today, the host has been transformed into the surrogate.

Today, Hezbollah's tentacles stretches across all levels of Lebanese society, consuming its resources to further the goal of Israel's destruction. If one looks closely, this domination has been implicit within Lebanon for over a decade, but on May 21st, 2008 with the signing of the Doha Agreement, this dominance has become explicit. This agreement proves Israel was correct in its strategy to target Lebanese infrastructure, because this infrastructure helps Hezbollah. Israel was right to attack Lebanese neighborhoods because these neighborhoods are assisting Hezbollah in attacking Israel. Lebanon is held to the same standards as any nation who would play landlord to terrorists. Lebanon, which includes all its citizens, inevitably bears the ultimate responsibility for what happens in its own house.  This state provides the world the perfect example of the gamble a nation takes when it plays host to extreme ideologies and terror organizations; as we see today, the landlord becomes the tenant, the master is reduced to a slave, a mere vassal, who is led by the whims and goals of its terror masters.

If one disagrees with the above description of Hezbollah's capabilities and/or motivations, they will be forced to at best minimize and at worst to ignore the vast verifiable evidence that stresses the fact that Hezbollah is the aggressor in this conflict. No longer is there the intellectual cover of Israel's occupation of south Lebanon to give Hezbollah the freedom fighting narrative it has used so skillfully to manipulate international opinion over the decades. Hezbollah, to put it simply, desires a dominion of Sharia Law, an Islamic caliphate over the entire Middle East, and after it consolidates the Middle East, will then set it sights upon infidel Europe.

Therefore, the accurate threat perception, is one that observes Israel as a nation on the front lines against an Islamist horde that has none of the West's modern sensibilities in war yet is armed and trained with all the most modern instruments of war. The advent of an Israeli pullout of south Lebanon (recognized by the U.N.) along with Hezbollah's further aggression lead us to the conclusion that appeasement and half measures are ineffective in dealing with this entity. On the contrary, Israel's limited 2006 war in Lebanon resulted in the military, strengthening and further entrenchment of Hezbollah in the Lebanese political field. When observed in this light, the only possible response to Hezbollah is one that will destroy it. In such an extreme context, the appropriate response may be a so-called "disproportionate" action that will provide Israel an enduring victory. However, when properly understanding Hezbollah as an entity that not only expressly seeks the destruction of Israel but also shows an ever-increasing capability in achieving that aim, talk of proportionality loses all meaning and is exposed as what it was from the get-go: geopolitical rhetoric.

It is enough to say that Israel, enjoying all rights accorded to a nation-state, has every liberty and obligation to destroy any real threat actualized against its sovereignty. But as it seems is the case with the Jewish State, Israel enjoys no such rights accorded and endowed to every other nation-state. Rather the Jewish State is held to a double standard, subjected to an invasive and intense scrutiny which is the same prejudiced standard that has applied to Jewish individuals and communities throughout human history. Wherefore, today it is not enough for Israel to act to fulfill its duty to defend its own citizens, but rather, it is required to provide military equations and moral justifications for each and every action it takes for its defense. This type of lawfare must be completely rejected by any Israeli leader, and refused as a cogent argument by any person who seeks to truly understand the lessons the 2006 war offers.

Hezbollah is an existential threat to Israel. Hezbollah's capacities and its motivations cannot be ignored in any coverage of this struggle; and as such, one must consider Israel's primary duty to defend its citizens. In the case of Hezbollah, it is a mortal threat and thus it is quite appropriate that whatever action is deemed necessary to destroy Hezbollah is the action that the Israel's leadership is morally obliged to pursue. Winston Churchill famously intoned that a nation fighting in a existential struggle must seek, "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." Today, Churchill's call is recited more for its rhetorical vigor than its message but it is the message that is most critical. Like Britain in 1939, listening to the calls for proportionality, or any other jilted ethical prescriptions, from the leaders of countries whose citizenry sits safe is to listen to the sound not just of momentary military failure (as many construe it) but of an approaching extinction. In this situation, the call is not for Israel to think about the Holocaust and to act with special circumstance in mind but, on the contrary, to forget what we think of as a special situation and act, like any other nation would, to defend our citizens from a threat that grows more critical each day.