My Word: An ugly war and ugly words

A la guerre, comme a la guerre! First, attack Israel, then blame it for fighting back. I wish naiveté were sweet rather than dangerous.

There has been a lot of talk recently about what will happen if Israel goes to war with Hezbollah. This misses the point: Israel is already at war with Hezbollah. Thousands of rockets and killer drones have been launched at northern Israel since October 7, the black date when Hezbollah’s ugly sibling in Gaza invaded southern Israel and carried out a mega-atrocity. 

Some 60,000 Israelis remain displaced from their homes close to the northern border. Devastating fires sparked by Hezbollah rocket fire have wiped out vast areas of agricultural land, forests, and nature reserves. If this isn’t war, it certainly ain’t peace.

In an interview last week with Amnon Lord in Yisrael Hayom’s weekend supplement, Col. (ret.) Gabi Siboni compared US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “a beauty queen who wishes for world peace. But she says it and then goes home; he remains and tries to force it.” Blinken, Lord noted, was already calling for Israeli restraint by October 8. But you can’t turn the other cheek when your face has just been blown to pieces.

Regarding the hostilities in the North, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby went a step further this week, saying: “We haven’t seen Hezbollah jump in with two full feet here. They have been, of course, conducting strikes across that border. The Israelis have been defending themselves against that. We don’t want to see escalation. We don’t want to see a second front.” Okey dokey. Should we just wait a bit for the terrorist army to cross the border like their Hamas counterparts?

It’s been eight months since the horrors of the Hamas attack in which some 1,200 were killed – many of them tortured, raped, and burned to death – and some 250 taken hostage. Even before the deaths of 12 soldiers (in four incidents) were announced last weekend, Israelis were aware of the costs of tackling terrorism, as well as the dangers of letting it grow unimpeded.

There is a deliberate obtuseness in the international diplomatic community. Instead of calling on Israel to exercise restraint in fighting back, more could be done to prevent the attacks on the Jewish state. On the northern border, for example, it is widely accepted that the war on Israel is being waged by the terrorist organization Hezbollah (with Iranian funding and support). 

But this ignores an essential point: Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government. It might be hard to put pressure on a terrorist organization – which doesn’t feel bound by international law – but a sovereign state could and should be held accountable.

BUT DON’T look to international jurists for support. The head of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam, who last month ruled against Israel’s actions in Gaza, is not only a Lebanese citizen but is also the country’s former ambassador to the UN. Somehow, the judicial expert did not think this should disqualify him from judging a state with which his own country is openly at war.

The ICJ is run under the auspices of the United Nations, where the double standards against Israel are inherent. After Israel successfully rescued four hostages being held in two private homes in Gaza earlier this month, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese posted on X: “Israel has used hostages to legitimize killing, injuring, maiming, starving, and traumatizing Palestinians in Gaza. And while intensifying violence against Palestinians in the rest of the occupied territory and Israel.” You read that correctly: Israel is guilty of the consequences of Hamas having abducted hostages. Has she lost the plot, or is she making it up as she goes along?

Playing both sides

European Union High Representative Josep Borrell also couldn’t help himself. He welcomed the news that Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv, and Andrey Kozlov were “free and safe,” and called for the release of the remaining hostages. Then, showing the more usual side of his two faces, he accused Israel of “another massacre of civilians” and described the situation in Gaza, based on Hamas’s own figures, as “appalling.”

Yes, Gazans were killed during the operation – that’s because the Israeli rescue team came under massive fire (costing the life of counterterrorism commando Arnon Zamora after whom the operation was posthumously named). This residential neighborhood not only sheltered the terrorists – including an elderly doctor and his journalist son who were holding three Israeli captives – it was also riddled with terror tunnels and overflowing with weapons. However, it was not starving, despite the Palestinian narrative.

FOR LIGHT relief, we will always have the moment BBC anchor Helena Humphrey asked former IDF International Spokesman Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Conricus: “Would there have been a warning for those citizens to get out in time?”

Conricus kept his cool and politely pointed out that if you warn terrorists that you’re just about to run a rescue operation, “they would kill the hostages, and that would defeat the purpose.”

Perhaps Humphrey, who has worked for both the UN and the Red Cross, really expected the terrorists to put the kettle on and make a nice cup of tea. Maybe we should have given a precise time for the rescue and asked the captors to make sure the hostages were wearing shoes.

In Humphrey’s defense, it should be noted that the IDF – unlike most militaries – does routinely warn residents ahead of operations in an attempt to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible. Perhaps this is what confused the TV journalist. Israel is expected to abide by a higher standard, even when it endangers its own soldiers.

ISRAEL AND France are also involved in a public battle. Citing the war in Gaza, the French government last week banned Israel from participating in the prestigious Eurosatory defense exhibition, where Israeli companies are usually in high demand. 

Taking it further, at the request of pro-Palestinian groups, not only were companies prevented from displaying their products, but a district court also barred Israelis from attending the event without signing a waiver that they were not there in an official capacity. Representatives of China and Iran – fighting to make the world a better place in their own image – were free to come and go, of course.

For good measure, the court ordered that the letter announcing the ban be posted at the entrances to the exhibition. It was long and convoluted. But it could be summed up as “No Israelis allowed.” It’s a step away from “No entrance for Jews.” A step in the same direction.

On Tuesday, after the start of the week-long event, a higher court overturned the ban as “discriminatory.” Well, this is 2024, not the 1940s, whatever it feels like to those suffering from the effects of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the massive increase in antisemitism worldwide.

At last week’s G7 Summit, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Israel, the US, and France had agreed in principle to set up a trilateral group to try to calm Israel’s border with Lebanon. After the Eurosatory ban was announced, however, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant blasted France for displaying bias against Israel and declared that Israel would not participate in the French-led efforts.

Like Macron, US President Joe Biden and Blinken have also proven to be unpredictable in their position on Israel, one moment offering open support, and the next delaying the supply of weapons and trying to restrict IDF actions. This week’s decision by the Biden administration to add members of Tzav 9 to the steadily growing list of Israelis being sanctioned in the US did nothing to improve trust. 

The group protests (and peacefully tries to block ) convoys of “humanitarian aid” to Gaza which, as members note, usually ends up in Hamas’s hands, literally fueling the conflict rather than ending it.

The message that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their Iranian backers are receiving is that terrorism pays. No matter what atrocity they carry out, the “enlightened” world will ensure that the Jewish state gets equal blame.

In the perennially funny movie Miss Congeniality, hapless FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) goes undercover to thwart an attack at the Miss America beauty pageant. She ends up delivering an impromptu lesson on the importance of self-defense. Wishing for world peace is not enough – you must be able to defend yourself.