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So Now We're Not Allowed to Eliminate Terrorists?

(Times of Israel) Yair Lapid - Twelve innocent children were killed by Hizbullah at a soccer field in northern Israel. A few days later, Israel eliminated a senior Hizbullah terrorist in a surgical strike in Lebanon in response. Yet, Israel is expected to endure a massive attack from Hizbullah as if this is an inevitable, even justified, response. A few days later, a senior Hamas terrorist was killed in Tehran. Again, Israel is expected to face volleys of rockets and drones in response. Too many are acting as if this is a reasonable equation. The Iranian president has stated that they have a "right to respond," while the leader of Hizbullah said Israel has crossed some sort of "red line" and a response would be inevitable. But why should such a response be "inevitable"? When the U.S. eliminated Osama bin Laden, no one thought it justified an al-Qaeda attack on Washington or New York. When al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria, no one expected the U.S. to calmly accept the inevitable revenge of ISIS. Terrorists don't play by the rules, yet today the world behaves as if their rules are reasonable. Those who kill terrorists must consider that their feelings might get hurt and that we have no choice but to accept their revenge. We have a choice. There is good and evil in the world. Liberal democracies represent justice, morality, and freedom, while terrorists are murderers who want to rob us of our way of life and slaughter our children. Terrorists have no right to retaliate. They live and operate outside the law and we are justified in making them pay the price. By what moral code should Israel accept rocket barrages from terrorist organizations and rogue states? It equates a legitimate defensive action by a law-abiding state with the blatantly illegal actions of a terrorist organization. And of course, what starts in Israel never stays in Israel. If tolerance for terrorist retaliation becomes the new international norm, sooner or later it will affect everyone. Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas cannot attack Israel and there can be no justification for it. If they do choose to attack, the West should stand behind Israel's response. The writer is a former prime minister of Israel and currently the leader of the Opposition in the Knesset.
2024-08-20 00:00:00
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