This is an opportunity for the international community to make amends for its failure to support a fellow democracy when it needed it most
Imagine that a well-armed terrorist organization, a proxy for an autocratic state, occupies a neighbouring nation and then indiscriminately fires thousands of rockets across the border at you. With tens of thousands of your people having to evacuate and countless others cowering in bomb shelters, would you sit back and do nothing? Or, would you fight back to protect your people?
Unfortunately, Israel has not had to imagine. While Israeli military forces fought to clear Hamas terrorists from the kibbutzes they attacked in the horrific October 7, 2023 massacre, Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite militia allied with Hamas, opened up another front.
Since Oct. 8, 2023, Hezbollah has fired over 12,000 rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon, forcing more than 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes. Many have yet to return. Tel Aviv residents have 90 seconds to get to a bomb shelter. The people living in northern Israel have only 15 seconds.
At the invitation of the Exigent Foundation and The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, I recently travelled to northern Israel, where I saw homes destroyed by Hezbollah’s bombs. I spoke with David Schain, the mayor of Shtula, a town near the Lebanese border. In addition to serving as mayor, Schain now commands the local Israel Defense Force (IDF) garrison. He shared his hope for the day he can return his rifle and focus on rebuilding his town.
Schain and other leaders I spoke with noted that while emergency sirens in the region have intensified since October 7, they are by no means new. Hezbollah has occupied southern Lebanon since 1982, spending the following decades infiltrating Lebanese politics and society.
It has not always been this way. Since Lebanon’s independence in 1943, politics in the country has been based on a sectarian power-sharing system divided among its three dominant religious sects. By convention, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim, the president is from the Maronite Christian community, and the defence minister is Druze.
Hezbollah, a recognized terrorist group, is a foreign disruptor in this unique Lebanese arrangement.
At the Alma Research and Education Center, an NGO founded by veteran intelligence officer Lt.-Col. (retired) Sarit Zehavi, I and my fellow visitors were shown a propaganda video produced by Hezbollah that conceptualized how it would invade towns in the Upper Galilee and take hostages to use as human shields. Sound familiar? These were the very tactics employed by Hamas on October 7.
To those who assert that Hezbollah is a legitimate political party in Lebanon, ask yourself if propaganda videos about how members could commit terrorist attacks is a reasonable activity for a legitimate political actor.
While in northern Israel, I visited one of four now-sealed tunnels dug by Hezbollah. Each were approximately a kilometre in length. Unlike the Hamas tunnels dug through sand in Gaza, Hezbollah’s tunnellers had to bore through limestone and bedrock. This was no small endeavour and required vast resources, including heavy machinery.
Instead of investing in schools and hospitals, Hezbollah dug terror tunnels and kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Are those the priorities of a legitimate political party? Hezbollah is a foreign occupying force in Lebanon. It serves a foreign master and uses Lebanese citizens as human shields for its terror agenda.
During a meeting with the 146 Division Commander, Lt.-Col. Jordan Herzberg, we heard that the IDF estimated that one in every three homes in southern Lebanon housed Hezbollah munitions. They were wrong. When they entered southern Lebanon to root out Hezbollah fighters, they discovered that nearly every home had been militarized and used to store rockets, mortars and other munitions.
As the operation continued, they also found munitions within a stone’s throw of UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) positions. This was in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon and which required the full cessation of hostilities and disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon.
To date, the IDF has seized over 13,000 Hezbollah rockets, anti-tank missiles and launchers, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems.
These discoveries serve as a total indictment of UNIFIL. How could it have failed its mission so spectacularly? What is clear, as we heard from Brig.-Gen. (retired) Amir Avivi, chairman of Israel’s Defense and Security Forum, who previously warned the country’s leaders of an attack a year before the October 7 massacre, is that Israelis will never again make the mistake of leaving their safety to others.
A ceasefire with Hezbollah was negotiated on Nov. 27, 2024. However, the 2024 agreement included a clause that Israel would maintain “complete military freedom of action” in the event of a violation of the agreement by Hezbollah or another entity. As we toured the border with the garrison, we could hear IDF artillery fire enforcing the agreement.
Hezbollah is weaker than ever. Its leadership has been decimated, its munitions destroyed or seized, and Druze and Maronite Christian Lebanese communities are pushing back against the terrorist group. The unique sectarian power-sharing agreement is being fulfilled and, for the first time in decades, the people of Lebanon have a chance to free their country from foreign terrorists.
This is an opportunity for the international community to make amends for its failure to support a fellow democracy when it needed it most. It’s an opportunity to rebuild trust with Israel; help the people of Lebanon reclaim their country; and enforce UN Resolution 1701. Above all, this is a chance to advance a just and durable peace in the region. Canada and the rest of the civilized world must not squander it.
This article was originally posted on the National Post and can be accessed here.
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