Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of Lebanon has clearly exceeded the limits of a measured, rational, and level-headed response, as it is unquestionably disproportionate and excessive. As casualties mount on both sides, with each air strike, Israeli policymakers contend that they are ever closer to dismantling the military infrastructure of Hezbollah. Yet Israeli cities in the North continue to receive torrents of rockets, and Hezbollah continues to function, and its capacity to retaliate still seems to be unhindered.
The Israelis contend that Hezbollah are the intended targets of their attacks, yet we see scores of Lebanese civilians killed or injured, and we continually see Lebanese population centers and civilian infrastructure turned into piles of rubble, and Hezbollah continues its retaliatory strikes against Israel , seemingly without any diminished capacity.
If Hezbollah are truly the sole intended targets as asserted by Israeli policymakers, then why are the majority of the targets struck in or around Beirut and other cities within Lebanon , seemingly civilian or infrastructural targets? And if so, what is the strategic value of such targets?
One plausible explanation is that the Israelis have decided, as they have done in the past, to collectively punish the Lebanese population for the actions of Hezbollah, assuming that the people of Lebanon will ultimately reach their limits of tolerance and blame Hezbollah for their suffering, in which case, this would theoretically diminish Hezbollah’s credibility among the Lebanese, and weaken it politically.
If this strategy is in fact Israel ‘s strategy of choice, it is undoubtedly failing to protect its own citizens in the North of Israel, as rockets continue to rain down on Israeli towns and villages. Similarly, a growing number of Lebanese, who may have felt betrayed by Hezbollah, now feel that they are their only hope to defend Lebanon against an impending full scale Israeli invasion and their only hope at scoring retaliatory points.
If anything, what the Israelis have accomplished by this latest series of vacuous belligerence is to create new enemies on the Arab street, and to mobilize world public opinion against its excessively violent retaliatory policies.
Israel ‘s right to defend itself is not in question. But what is in question, apart from the ethical value of Israel ‘s behavior, is the validity of Israel ‘s policy to retaliate with brute force against its neighbors which ultimately sets a dangerous precedent in the region and around the world.
No state should be allowed free reign as a rule to relentlessly bomb its neighbors as a form of collective punishment, not even an ally of the United States. If this becomes accepted as the norm, then states like India may in the name of self-defense, decide to bomb Pakistan for the actions of militant groups that are outside of Pakistan ‘s sphere of control, as such unrestrained state violence sets a dangerous precedent on the international scale.
(The author is an Arab-American graduate of Vanderbilt University, and an Investment Banker in the United States ).