Sometimes, Violence Really Is the Answer

Members of Hezbollah burying their comrades. Beirut, September 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The recent attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon produced the expected bafflement and preening among those who can afford (or think they can afford) to remain confused about the ethics of human violence.  

Thousands of electronic pagers—and later, hand-held radios—exploded simultaneously, killing dozens and injuring vast numbers of jihadists. This attack, the ingenuity of which cannot be denied, has been widely criticized as a dangerous escalation, as a breach of the rules of war, and most ludicrously, as an act of terrorism.

But if this Trojan Horse operation was as precise as it appears to have been, then it ranks among the most ethical acts of self-defense in memory. There are no “innocent” members of Hezbollah—whose only contributions to human culture have been the ruination of Lebanon and the modern evil of suicide bombing. This Iranian proxy has been firing rockets into northern Israel since October 8th, in response to… well, nothing at all. Israel’s occupation of Lebanon ended a quarter century ago.

If the Israelis managed to target members of Hezbollah by turning their personal electronic equipment into bombs—without seeding such bombs indiscriminately throughout Lebanon—then they achieved a triple victory. First, they killed or maimed the very people who have been trying to murder them, and who have displaced 70,000 innocent Israeli civilians from their homes. Second, they marked actual jihadists among the survivors, presumably making them easier to capture or kill in the future—and, one can only hope, reducing their status in Lebanese society. And third, they have stripped away some of the glamour of jihad. The promise of Paradise is one thing; the prospect of living without fingers or eyes is another.

Again, the righteousness of this attack depends on whether it was as targeted as it seems. Tragically, four children are reported to have been killed. However, compared to almost any other military operation, this act of mass sabotage appears to have produced very few unintended deaths. It is an example of exactly the sort of calibrated violence that Israel’s critics claim to support. And it has delivered a profound psychological blow to one of the most ruthless jihadist organizations on Earth.

Of course, many assert that any acts of retaliation, however precise, simply breed more violence. They seem to believe that pacifism, in some form, must be the ultimate answer to Israel’s existential concerns. After all, how else will the killing stop?