Israel At War

Hugh Hewitt has an excellent post today on Israel at war.

Hezbollah crossed the border into Israel, attacked Israeli Defense Forces, killed three soldiers and kidnapped two others. They are asking for Hezbollah prisoners to be released in exchange for the two soldiers. Israel considers this an act of war.

Here's how Hugh describes it:

Hamas wants a war with Israel. Hezbollah wants a war with Israel.

When that war comes in full force, the West should make a stand in the U.N. and everywhere else and be very clear about the fact that the war was one of choice for the Islamist militias, and that Israel was obliged to accept war, but did not chose it.

There are lessons to be learned from every action or inaction by a nation. Friends and enemies alike learn what a nation will ignore and what will provoke a response. Osama bin Laden admitted that he learned the US was weak when we didn't respond to the various bombings in the 1990s and the USS Cole in 2000.

And now Israel's willingness to negotiate with Hamas for a prisoner exchange has taught Hezbollah that Israel will negotiate. That's the lesson that gave rise to their incursion into Israel. Now that's the lesson that Israel must fight to un-teach its enemies.

Indeed Israel is at war now, with both Hamas and Hezbollah. They didn't openly invite it, but they're in it nonetheless. Their attempts at negotiation were counterproductive, because their enemies see negotiation as weakness, and they see weakness as something to be exploited.

There's no reasoning with unreasonable terrorists. They only understand force, so force is all that's left for Israel to use. May they use it effectively to crush both Hamas and Hezbollah.