Lebanon must choose: Disarm Hezbollah or pay the full price - opinion

Answering these questions, so it is claimed, is critical so that Israel can tailor its response, even as a ceasefire between the two countries: Israel and Lebanon was declared on April 16.

Truth be told, for Israel and its citizens, the question is entirely irrelevant. When a rocket, a missile, an RPG, a UAV, or any other explosive device falls on a house in Israel, the people wounded or murdered do not care how to exactly define the aggressor who shot the projectile. The demand of its citizens is that Israel’s government do all that is necessary to keep them safe and to prevent further attacks. Israel’s citizens have the inherent right to live in peace and free from hundreds of potentially lethal daily attacks.

Lebanon, however divided, however problematic, is a country. As such, Lebanon bears the responsibility for any aggression from within its territory against Israel.

For decades, the country of Lebanon has been playing a double game. First, it hosted the Fatah terrorists who turned southern Lebanon into “Fatahland” and used it as a launching ground to bombard Israel and as a staging ground for cross-border terrorist attacks. The Lebanese government did nothing.

While it is patently clear that Hezbollah does not serve the interests of the country of Lebanon or the Lebanese people, no one cares. The UN, as usual, prefers to support any country or militia or terrorist group that attacks Israel. European countries, led by French President Emmanuel Macron and closely followed by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are no different.

While some of them have paid lip service to define Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, they continue to argue that destroying the terrorists who are trying to murder Jews, and too often succeeding, is illegal.

After Israel dealt Hezbollah a substantial blow in 2024, the international community could have helped the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. While the US tried to engage, the Lebanese government, headed by vehemently anti-Israel Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, rejected every suggestion.

When Hezbollah resumed its attacks on Israel, after the start of the war with Iran, Israel was again forced to respond. In the absence of any other alternative, Israel was forced to operate in Lebanon to achieve three objectives – two tactical and one strategic.

Tactically, Israel was trying to prevent the use of southern Lebanon as a staging ground for Hezbollah’s Radwan forces to invade Israel as they have repeatedly planned to do.

Israel was also trying to prevent direct fire of explosive devices against its civilian population living on the northern border. To achieve this goal, Israeli forces seized territory in southern Lebanon. The idea was to put physical distance between the terrorists and our citizens.

The second tactical goal was to limit, to the greatest extent possible, the ability of Hezbollah to fire missiles, rockets, and UAVs at Israel. This goal was achieved to a large extent by targeting Hezbollah’s stockpiles.

The strategic goal of destroying Hezbollah is the most complex. This goal cannot be reached through bombardments of the organization’s military capabilities alone. In fact, it is unlikely whether Israel would ever be able to achieve this goal by itself.

To date, the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, some outrageously creative like the beeper operation, have been nothing different from the past. Israel has held a security strip in southern Lebanon, eliminated Hezbollah terrorists, and targeted Hezbollah’s military arsenal. Nothing changed.

For real change to come about, Israel must widen its approach and apply maximum pressure not only on Hezbollah but on all of Lebanon. The pressure applied must be so intensive that it finally persuades the Lebanese government that it is no longer viable for Lebanon to continue defending Hezbollah.

All infrastructure in Lebanon that allows Hezbollah to continue to survive must be targeted. There is no reason why Ben-Gurion Airport should have been closed, while the airport in Beirut, which also serves Hezbollah, continued to function. What is left of the port in Beirut, used as a major corridor for arming Hezbollah, should also suffer the consequences.

With Israel having already targeted Hezbollah’s private banking system, any other banks found to be participating in terrorist funding should be targeted. Without the billions of dollars received from the Lebanese and Shi’ite diaspora and from the sale of drugs – estimated to be around $12 billion a year – Hezbollah cannot function.