Bleich: Israeli self-defense, Hezbollah’s terrorism not equal
By Rabbi Moshe Bleich
Thursday, August 10, 2006 - Updated: 09:01 AM EST

Watching the most recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East, some are tempted to believe that there exists a "cycle of violence" where both sides, the Israelis and Hezbollah, share an equal blame in the deaths of hundreds of Israeli and Lebanese civilians.

However, the reality of the situation is much different. There is no moral equivalence between the Israelis, who are seeking to minimize the Lebanese civilian casualties as they defend their own civilians, and Hezbollah, which seeks to maximize the murders of Israeli civilians while using the Lebanese civilian population as a human shield, gleefully exploiting each civilian death in the media in an asymmetric war against the Israelis.

In an effort to reduce civilian casualties, the Israeli military dropped tens of thousands of leaflets in Lebanese towns, warning civilians in their native tongue to evacuate the area in advance of Israeli air strikes aimed at destroying Hezbollah rocket launchers and hideouts. They even went so far as to make phone calls to warn civilians to leave, even though both of these tactics meant warning the enemy as well.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah terrorists launch thousands of rockets at Israeli cities from atop Lebanese apartment buildings, knowing that if Israel strikes back, there’s a good chance that they’ll kill women and children. This is a win-win situation for the terrorists because pictures of these tragedies are then exploited in the Western media to pressure Israel to stop defending herself. Hezbollah is thus able to both terrorize Israelis and portray them as villains in the process.

Nonetheless, the moral responsibility of these deaths is squarely on the shoulders of the murderers who intentionally and maliciously placed those civilians in harm’s way. As Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once lamented, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill theirs."

From the moment it declared its independence from Britain in 1948, Israel has always been willing to make peace with her neighbors. Unfortunately, partners in peace were sorely lacking. The day Israel declared independence, five Arab armies invaded with the rallying cry "drive the Jews into the sea!" and attempted to exterminate the infant Jewish state. Israel has since been forced to fight a succession of defensive wars until the present.

Though the terrorists claim that they are only fighting Israel because of the "occupation," nothing could be further from the truth. For years, Israel maintained an occupation of southern Lebanon to defend Israeli cities from rocket attacks. UN Resolution 1559 mandated that the Israelis withdraw from Lebanon and that the Lebanese government disarm Hezbollah. While Israel has complied completely with the demands of the international community, Lebanon has not only failed to meet their responsibilities but has allowed Hezbollah to increase their military capacity and attack Israel.

Calls for a ceasefire, while generally well intentioned, are wrongheaded and would only serve the interests of the terrorists. These "ceasefires" are only used by the terrorists to reorganize and build up their weapons cache. Another "ceasefire" is a bad idea since it would leave Middle East in same situation as it was in before the most recent violence. This would only be kicking the can down the road so we’ll have to deal with the problem later. We need a long-term solution that provides security and peace for all parties involved, but there cannot be peace or security with an armed Hezbollah pointing missiles at Israeli cities.

It should be noted that Hezbollah is funded almost entirely by the Iranian government which is currently headed by a maniacal dictator, Ahmadinejad, who recently declared that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map." Any long-term solution must also address the threat posed by a nuclear-seeking Iran to regional stability and to the world at large.

As someone who has spent a few years in the Middle East, including both Israel and several Arab nations, and as someone who has many family members and friends living in Israel, I want nothing more than to see a peaceful resolution to this conflict. My heart bleeds for both the Israeli and Lebanese civilians caught up in the violence. Nonetheless, it is imperative that Americans maintain a clear-eyed analysis of this conflict that distinguishes between legitimate self-defense and terrorism and doesn’t buy the myth of a "cycle of violence." As it has been said, "if Hezbollah were to lay down its weapons, there would be no more violence; but if Israel were to lay down its weapons, there would be no more Israelis." Moshe Bleich is the rabbi of the Wellesley-Weston Chabad.