Holding the regimes responsible

This extract from the Jerusalem Post Editorial, Nov. 22, 2005 is just as relevant today in light of the escalating violence from both Gaza and Lebanon...

On the same day that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon delivered a political bombshell by resigning from the Likud, real bombshells fell on the northern town of Metulla, for the first time since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon five years ago. ...

...Israel responded with bombardments against Hizbullah's bases, but has not directly attacked the interests of the capitals it has held responsible - namely, Beirut, Damascus, and Teheran.
The question is whether such restraint on Israel's part, in the face of what the United States has rightly condemned as an "unprovoked attack," is wise. Once again, Israel seems to be acting by the old "rules" that were supposed to have been changed by the withdrawal from southern Lebanon behind a UN-recognized border.

According to the new rules, Israel would not retaliate tit-for-tat in the case of Hizbullah attacks, but would act directly against the interests of responsible governments in Lebanon, Syria or Iran. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz hinted as much when he stated that "Syrian and Iranian interests are behind this event....."

... Israel should be making clear to the US, France and the UN that, if Lebanon is not forced to disarm Hizbullah or move it away from our border, and if Syria is not forced to abandon its support for terrorism, Israel will be forced to act directly against the national interests of these regimes. Our message, in short, should be, either you act or we will. This, not coincidentally, should also be our new message with respect to the impotence of the Palestinian Authority. Israel cannot continue to be in a position of tit-for-tat retaliation against the terrorists themselves, while the regimes behind the terrorists escape scot-free.

Restraint for its own sake, as we should have learned by now, is worse than useless: It simply invites further and perhaps more deadly attacks. Restraint only makes sense if Israel is "paid" for it in the form of concrete actions that more effectively safeguard our security.

Hizbullah has thousands of missiles pointed at our northern residents. Though we have become used to the fact that, by and large, these missiles have not been fired since Israel's withdrawal, it is a mistake to pretend that holding large parts of the population hostage to the whims of a terrorist organization is acceptable.

When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, our leaders, and even the international community acted as if the Lebanese army's restoration of sovereignty to the south was a matter of days or weeks. Five years later, it has not happened.

The international pressure that has been building on Syria should only increase in response to that regime's resort, once again, to proxy aggression against Israel. Syria must learn that its only way out is to abandon the path of aggression and terror, rather than returning to its old-style intimidation tactics.

It is appropriate that Israel act in-sync with the international community in increasing this pressure now that, finally, our concerns have become more widely shared. But such cooperation must be a results-oriented, two-way street.