Hezbollah's fight with Israel in 2006 - Essay Example

Given the harsh rhetoric against Israel in the Middle East for the past few decades, it may be a matter of time until one of those neighbors develops the support, and the military resources, to invade and devastate the tiny Israeli nation as a means of removing the Jewish presence from Jerusalem. This kind of conflict would ignite the entire Middle East in a war against the West, given the support that Israel enjoys from the United States and Europe. Therefore, the 2006 July War was not only a frightening experience for the parties directly involved, but the whole world.

Although Israel received much criticism for its unmatched hostilities against Hezbollah and Lebanon, one could certainly argue that Israel was justified in taking those measures. On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah paramilitary forces engaged an Israeli patrol on the Israeli side of the border. This left three Israeli soldiers dead and two captured. Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister of Israel, responded with systematic bombings of southeastern Lebanon, which killed far more civilians than Hezbollah fighters.

Hezbollah responded to these bombings with unsystematic, indiscriminate missile launches at towns and civilians in northern Israel. One side, the Israelis, endeavored to take away Hezbollah’s ability to fight. The other side, Hezbollah, vowed to keep going until Israel stopped its aggression. When the conflict stopped by UN ceasefire on August 14th, nearly 1,000 Lebanese were dead and nearly a million were displaced by the violence. The economies of both countries clearly suffered, especially with the destruction of vast infrastructures in Lebanon, which essentially put that country 20 years behind.

Through this experience, however, one could certainly argue that Hezbollah was the winner, not Israel, despite the extensive damage done by the Israeli forces to Lebanon. Knowing that Israel’s objective during the July War was to destroy Hezbollah’s ability to engage in war and kill Israeli civilians, Israel failed to more than temporarily diminish that ability. The Lebanese people grew to identify with Hezbollah through the experience, partly because they saw Hezbollah as their only protectors against the huge Israel.

However, Hezbollah has been reportedly restocked with weapons from Syria and Iran, which means that this kind of conflict could restart at any time in the near future (Tristam, 2006). With Hezbollah’s increased support from other countries, it is a dangerous situation right now for Israel, who saw its reputation suffer deeply from the events of the July War. But even though Israel’s reputation suffered as a result of its actions in July 2006, one could very well argue, as many Zionists and supporters of Israel have done, that their actions were justified in the way of Hezbollah’s initial aggression (Bentov, 2007).

Clearly, the killing of Israel soldiers by another military is an act of war. Unfortunately for Israel, Hezbollah is not a true “military” in the sense that it has a standing army. Israel then targeted their enemy as closely as they could, but failed to achieve the kind of precision that would have earned them victory. Perhaps Israel would have benefited from using tactical forces on the ground, and not using its air force to bomb targets in crowded urban areas. Despite that, it seems Israel was entitled to some