While world attention has been focused on the conflict in Gaza, Hezbollah has rained down more than 8800 rockets, missiles and drones on Israel’s northern frontier. The most shocking of these attacks occurred on July 27 when a Hezbollah rocket strike killed 12 children as they were playing soccer in the town of Majdal Shams.
Israel’s north is now largely uninhabitable. Schools are closed, businesses shut. Sixty thousand Israelis have been displaced from their homes for the past year. The same is true in Israel’s south in the area bordering Gaza, where continued fighting with Hamas has kept tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes for almost a year, unable to return.
To have large chunks of your country rendered uninhabitable because of the threat of hostile military action would be unacceptable to any nation. For a country as small as Israel, less than a third the size of Tasmania, it is intolerable.
Hezbollah’s aim since the start of this conflict has been to make life unbearable for Israel while avoiding a major confrontation with its southern foe. Like all terror groups, Hezbollah prefers to fight asymmetrically, knowing any serious conflict with Israel would cost it dearly. So Hezbollah, supported by its patron Iran, instead is engaged in a calculated war of attrition.
After 11 months of enduring this, and countless warnings to Hezbollah and appeals to the international community, Israel’s patience has run out. Last week there was a dramatic escalation in Israeli operations against Hezbollah. This included remote detonation of communication devices, targeted strikes against commanders, and airstrikes against Hezbollah strongholds and missile sites in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
This is not necessarily a precursor to a full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Instead it is designed to send a calibrated message to Hezbollah and its patron, Iran: to cease attacks against Israel and allow populations on both sides of the border to return to normal life. It also is intended to compel the international community to act and finally enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
This resolution, adopted in 2006, demands the withdrawal of Hezbollah and other armed groups from south of the Litani River, a river that runs 30km north of the Israel-Lebanon border. With that sort of buffer, citizens on both sides of the border could return in safety. But it has never been implemented.
These facts should make one thing clear: Israel has not sought this war, nor does it bear moral responsibility for the civilian suffering it inevitably will occasion. Instead, culpability lies with Hezbollah, the aggressor. Israel has been left with little choice but to act to protect its population and re-establish control over its north.
The simple moral logic of this analysis has escaped the Labor government. In late June, Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts summoned Israel’s ambassador to expressly warn him that Australia would not support Israel in a war with Hezbollah.
The use of double standards when it comes to Israel and its enemies is common, but this was an extraordinary intervention by an Australian government: to issue a blunt warning to a friendly country that it would not have our support in responding to continued attacks by a listed terrorist group.
Labor has reacted to the crisis with its usual meaningless formula for responding to any issue of global tension, urging “all parties to de-escalate”. But while platitudes may keep the peace with Labor’s Left, they are no substitute for action.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong is in New York this week for meetings of the UN. If she were serious about de-escalation, she should be investing her effort in demanding Hezbollah cease its attacks on Israel and urging Iran to rein in its client. She would be lobbying her international counterparts to enforce Resolution 1701 as a means of fostering peace and upholding international law.
Instead, Wong’s priority for this trip appears to be the pursuit of a new declaration on the protection of humanitarian personnel – a worthy goal, to be sure, but embarrassingly lacking in ambition when the Middle East and Europe are embroiled in existential conflict.
Intelligence reports indicate Hezbollah has asked Iran to conduct strikes against Israel to alleviate pressure on itself – further evidence the region stands on the brink of a more devastating conflict. Given the large number of Australians in Lebanon at any given time and the family ties that exist, such a conflict would have serious implications for Australia.
Anthony Albanese has been warning Australians to leave Lebanon. But he also needs to employ Australia’s agency in seeking to prevent this conflict from escalating. It has become a trademark of Labor’s approach to the Middle East that it is big on declarative statements but absent when it comes to diplomatic delivery. Australia’s role is not to sit in judgment or be a commentator. It is to help prevent a wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah developing because that is what our national interests demand.
Dave Sharma is a NSW senator and was ambassador to Israel, 2013-17.
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In the hours after Hamas inflicted its devastating terror attack on southern Israel, Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah fired rockets at positions along Israel’s northern border. It has not stopped since.