Hezbollah’s provocative cross-border attack of an Israeli military outpost killing three soldiers and abducting two others was responded by Israel with extensive bombings of Lebanon. Israel claimed the bombing was targeted at Hezbollah guerrillas and their military infrastructures, including its strategic guerrilla outposts, rocket launchers, underground bunkers and weapon warehouses. As Hezbollah operates from amongst the civilian areas, Israel’s massive bombing naturally resulted in nearly 700-800 civilian deaths, according to Lebanese claim whilst Israel claimed to have killed about 530 Hezbollah militants. 

These civilian deaths raised a deafening outcry in the media and Israel was severely condemned by foreign governments and numerous international organizations with the UN and Human Rights groups taking the lead. UN secretary general Kofi Annan demanded that ‘Israel's disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop.’ [1]. He claimed that Israel has "committed grave breaches of international humanitarian law" and "has caused, and is causing, death and suffering on a wholly unacceptable scale." All major UN officials [1], France and Russia [2], European Union and a whole host of human rights organizations joined voice with Mr. Annan to condemn Israel’s allegedly excessive force. Mr. Annan further claimed Israel’s bombing was deliberate targeting of non-military personnel and infrastructures such as airports [3] and urged the UNSC to condemn the Israeli response [4]. Human rights groups, too, termed Israel’s Lebanon bombing ‘indiscriminate’ [5] and deliberately targeted civilians [6] and went on to threaten Israel to bring to criminal court for war crime [7]. 

So the ultimate message of Mr. Annan and his like-minded fellows in the UN, in human rights bodies and in the EU, the French, the Russians and entire Muslim world wanted from Israel negotiations with Hezbollah, not the aggressive military operations. The negotiation, if gone by the precedence, would have meant releasing criminal Hezbollah militants held in Israeli jails in exchange of the two captured soldiers. Hezbollah’s criminal and unprovoked aggression into Israeli territory and the killing of the three other soldiers must have gone unpunished. Or Mr. Annan was probably prescribing a limited operation by Israel that would have killed three Hezbollah guerrillas without killing any civilians to make it a “proportionate response”. How to carry out such an operation? How to avoid harming civilians when the Hezbollah militants operate amongst the civilians, sleep amongst them and live with their wives, children and family members? Israeli army’s attempt to enter Lebanese territory to carry out targeted ground offensive against the Hezbollah, even after the massive bombings to dismantle their terrorist infrastructures, was met with deadly casualties. When Hezbollah is so well-fortified and well-armed, Mr. Annan by his “proportionate response” was only prescribing a suicidal mission by the Israeli army to venture inside Lebanon to hunt down three guerillas to avenge the killing of its three soldiers. 

Further, the big question is: can Israel survive by following Annan’s formula of “proportionate response”? Let us do some simple math here. Today Israel should have responded with selectively killing exactly three Hezbollah guerrillas and release all the criminal Hezbollah prisoners held in Israeli prisons in exchange of the two soldiers captured. Tomorrow again Hezbollah would kill 10 soldiers and Israel must respond proportionately by killing 10 Hezbollah fighters. The fact is that Israel’s fight is just not about Hezbollah and Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al-Aqsa Brigade. The fight is between Israel and the entire Muslim community. The Mullahs in Iran and the Syrians are ready to attack Israel as soon as they would feel confident to defeat the Jewish state. Two Iranian planes, one filled with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and another with mid-range missiles, are said to have been diverted from Lebanon to Turkey and Tehran, respectively during the Israeli operation [8]. Thousands of Jihadist volunteers in Iran and Indonesia have signed up for fighting in Lebanon and a few thousand Indonesian Jihadists have allegedly left for Lebanon. Fighters from all corners of the Muslim world, eager to fight Jihad in Lebanon, were quietly heading there. 

Thus, Israel’s fight for its existence is not simply with its Muslim neighbors but with the entire Muslim world. There are 6 million Jews in Israel whilst the Muslim world consists of 1400 million Muslims. There are another 6 million Jews scattered across the world, who have little interest to join the fight in Israel. Even if we consider the entire 12 million Jews are at war with 1400 million Muslims of the world, a proportionate response would result in annihilation of the entire Jewish people and Israel with little change in the Islamic demography. Muslim population would still stand at the formidable ~1300 millions. The way overpopulated Muslim countries are, loss of 12 million Muslims would mean very little to them. What does Kofi Annan’s formula of “proportionate response” means for Israel? It is Israel’s complete annihilation which Mr. Annan’s Jihadi Muslim brothers have been trying since the day Israel was created. This is the “best Jihad formula” the Muslim world could have hoped for. 

The so-called civilians in Lebanon South and in West Bank and Gaza have declared an open war with Israel by electing Hezbollah and Hamas militants, who aim to annihilate Israel, in free and fair elections. These so-called civilians elect these deadly enemies in democratic elections, instead of those seeking peace with Israel, allowing the militant groups to wage wars against Israel, give them quarters and support to carry out terrorist operations hiding amongst them and whole-heartedly try to shield the guerrillas when under attack from Israel. They are hardly civilians but instead deadly warriors for Israel. Without them, militant groups would neither exist nor survive. These civilians are the greater threat to Israel’s survival than the Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups. 

And the fact remains that these Islamic militant groups and their civilian allies, the Al-Qaeda, the Iran Mullahs and the Syrian regime, who are bent on annihilating Israel, would perform the deadly acts as soon as they become powerful enough to do so. The Arab world, with unstinted supports from the world’s Muslim community, tried to do that as soon as Israel was created in 1948. They tried that on multiple other occasions by aggressively attacking Israel but 1967’s Arab aggression and the disastrous loss resulting in Israel’s occupation of large chunk of the Arab lands from Egypt and Jordan dented Muslim world’s courage and hope to annihilate the Jewish state. Subsequently, the Muslim governments have changed their strategy by creating various fringe terrorist groups in the region to continue their Jihad of annihilating the Israeli state. When the Western world recently imposed economic blockade against democratically elected Hamas for their charter of destroying Israel, the Muslim world came in with money to sustain Hamas’ Jihadi campaign, instead of pressurizing the terrorist outfit towards recognizing Israel. To be noted that except Jordan and Egypt, the rest of the Muslim world maintain their desire to see Israel annihilated by not recognizing the Jewish state nearly sixty years after its creation.  

If Israel has to avenge any aggressive attack against its territory and citizens keeping its survival mind, a “proportionate response” must take into account the huge Muslim community against the paltry 12 million Jews on their side. Kofi Annan’s 1:1 proportionate response would result in Israel’s quick and definite annihilation. If Mr. Annan (and the UN) has any interest to see peace in the Middle East, he should work towards the abolition and annihilation of forces that aim to destroy Israel, not negotiate with them. Nearly six decades after the creation of Israel under its own mandate, it is ridiculous that the UN would even tolerate the existence of states and especially fringe terrorist groups seeking the annihilation of Israel, let alone negotiate with them. UN better learn from the experience of the creation of Pakistan in 1947 and the response of the Indian Hindus in that regard. Let me remind the world that both Israel and the Indian land, which Muslims’ demand as their own, came through barbaric conquests by the brutal Islamic armies coming from the Arab lands staring in 637 and 712 CE, respectively. If the Christians of Britain and other European counties cannot demand their former colonies as their own lands, the Muslims too cannot demand the same. This indeed applies to any place in the world Muslims live in. 

It is the Hindus of India, who had valid reasons to stage wars against the Pakistani state after it was created in 1947. Instead and strangely, it is the Muslim Pakistan who attacked India within a year and on a few more occasions. After India responded to Pakistan’s aggression by thoroughly defeating and occupying a large part of Pakistan territory in 1965, they changed the strategy of Jihad by creating numerous terrorist groups that continue to terrorize India on a daily basis. Unless the world community understands the strange mentality of the Muslim populace and takes correct measures to change or tackle it, there is little hope that we will see, any time soon, a world free of the scourge of Islamic violence terrorizing people at all corners of the world.

 References:

[1] Kofi Annan to Hizbullah's rescue? 

[2] Global outcry at bombing 

[3] Three UN observers killed in Lebanon 

[4] Kofi Annan asks UNSC to condemn Lebanon bombing 

[5] Human Rights Watch: IAF bombing in Lebanon is 'indiscriminate .. 

[6] Human Rights group slams Israel for bombing civilians

[7] U.N., Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Possible War Crimes