The Leader

Let Israel finish the job

22 July 2006

Mr Blair was right, however, to tell the Commons on Tuesday that the ‘root cause’ of the violence in Lebanon was not Israel’s conduct or Palestinian suffering — real as that remains — but the growth of Islamic extremism under the sheltering wing of Tehran and Damascus. Whatever one thinks of the Iraq war, this extremism long predates that conflict, and would be flourishing today even if the Coalition had not acted against Saddam Hussein in 2003. Now that Hezbollah has opened hostilities, it is crucial that its military machine be disabled. That task falls to Israel, and it is right that America is insisting that Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, be given reasonable time to achieve that objective.

It is routinely alleged that Israel’s acts of self-defence and the West’s complicity in such self-defence are somehow a recruiting sergeant for Islamism in the region. On that ludicrous basis a sovereign state should never react against incursion lest its response upset the supporters of its attackers. It is just as plausible that any show of weakness by Israel under such intense provocation would be the real recruiting sergeant for the mullahs. Hezbollah knows that Israel cherishes its soldiers deeply and that these abductions would give Prime Minister Olmert no option but to retaliate. That being so, it is all the more important for Israel and its supporters not to waver — which is what the terrorists really long for.

What those who want to see the Jewish state destroyed have been shown this week is that acts of aggression will prompt a swift and fearless military response. In such a context, discussion of ‘proportionality’ is absurd. Hezbollah and its state sponsors sent a hugely threatening signal to Israel. They have been sent a signal back.

Remember: Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza last year. It asks only that UN Resolution 1559 — which calls for the disarming of Lebanese militias and the deployment of the Lebanese army into southern Lebanon — be implemented.

What the terrorists want, meanwhile, is another round of Western hand-wringing, equivocation and half-measures, underpinned by the unspoken belief that, somehow, Israel is to blame for its predicament. What the Islamists dread is a clear decision by the international community to let the Israelis finish the job, eradicate as much of the Hezbollah machine as possible, and then — and only then — resume the painful process of transforming Lebanon into a tolerable neighbour. So: let them finish the job.