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Why Israel Needs to Fight
(Times of India) Dr. Dan Schueftan - The instigators of the current war - Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Gaza, their radical supporters in the West Bank, Hizbullah from Lebanon, the Houthis from Yemen, Shiite militias from Syria and Iraq, and the Iranian regional power that arms, finances and inspires them - all proudly seek to bring about the destruction of the Jewish state and its people. Their grievance is not limited to occupation or alleged maltreatment but concerns the very existence of Israel. The role model they educate their children to glorify is the "Martyr" killer of Jews. These proxies wage war from amidst their civilian population, directly against the Israeli civilian population. Positioning their rockets and arsenals in schools, hospitals, mosques and nurseries, they present Israel with a choice between acquiescing in the slaughter of Israel's children, and causing, in the course of disabling their war machine, civilian casualties on the Arab side. They have repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice their own civilians so that Israel will be embarrassed, criticized, and eventually stopped by its Western allies from effectively responding to the radical Arab aggression. The destruction in Gaza was not Israel's war objective; the Palestinian insistence to use civilian structures for military positions, arsenals, tunnel shafts and booby-traps made it inevitable. This strategy proved to work to some extent, when an unholy alliance of media, international organizations, as well as confused students and an assortment of old and new anti-Semites, chose to blame the targets of genocidal aggression for defending themselves. Israel's challenge in Lebanon is similar to the one it had in Gaza: to prove that it can levy a cost of war that even a society that does not care about its people can't bear for long. Israel needs to prove again that it can recuperate, continue to offer its people a good and ever improving life, and disregard the self-righteous denunciations. Threatened for more than a century, the Jews proved that they can develop productive enterprise in their ancestral homeland, even as their enemies stagnate, fail and crumble. When this war is over, many will realize how significant it has been for all democracies. What looms is the threat of unscrupulous radicals finding a way to undermine and destroy strong and developed democracies, using their scruples and vulnerabilities as the proverbial Achilles' heel. If terrorists can do this with impunity, civilized pluralistic societies stand no chance. Having one hand tied behind their back may be necessary for such societies to uphold their values even in times of crisis. Now they are being bullied by self-appointed moral gatekeepers to suicidally tie the other hand too. Israel did what it had to do in Gaza. It will in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. If need be, at a very high cost, in Iran. The writer heads the International Graduate Program in National Security Studies at the University of Haifa.