This is Israeli resistance

I’m co-opting liberal language to call the retaliation against Hezbollah’s nearly yearlong attacks and preemptive strikes to prevent more imminent attacks the following: Israeli resistance. Because this is what resistance against a terrorist army actually looks like. But the world is, as usual, upside down.

Former CIA director Leon Panetta called Israel’s precision pager attack on Hezbollah terrorists “a form of terrorism” — you know, the operation in which only terrorists were targeted, in which only Hezbollah members (and the Iranian ambassador) were in possession of the exploding pagers.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed solidarity with “Lebanese victims of this week’s events” — does he mean the air strike that took out Ibrahim Aqil, one of the masterminds of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 58 French service members (as well as 241 American service members and six civilians)?

Much of the blame lies with the international media, which has hardly reported at all on Hezbollah’s attacks over the last 11 months.
Much of the world simply does not know about the Israeli children and parents and civilians (and yes, soldiers, whose lives are no less valuable) whom Hezbollah murdered with rockets.

They don’t know about the Israeli homes and schools that Hezbollah destroyed with their targeted anti-tank missiles, and about the Israeli towns Hezbollah has burned down with their suicide drones.

They have no idea that more than 60,000 Israeli civilians are still displaced from their homes because of the 8,500 rockets and suicide drones that Hezbollah has been shooting at us nonstop since the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.

And the ones who do know don’t care, because the 60,000 displaced Israelis aren’t visibly suffering (thanks to the Israeli government setting them up in hotels and safer cities), so it doesn’t make for good TV.

So without all of that context, Hezbollah suddenly becomes the victim. Hezbollah suddenly becomes another “resistance movement” against “unprovoked Israeli aggression.”

Ignorance is no excuse, but it gives me hope that this narrative can be reversed in a way that the Gaza one cannot. It’s up to us to do what the media won’t, and hold the media accountable when we can: We need to make sure social media gets the context loud and clear.

Keyboard warriors want to talk about resistance? This is Israeli resistance.

Blowing up the pagers exclusively of members of a terrorist army that has been shooting rockets at us for 11 months is Israeli resistance.
Assassinating a Hezbollah leader who had a $7 million American bounty on his head for orchestrating the 1983 Beirut bombings and was responsible for daily attacks on northern Israel is Israeli resistance.

Eliminating a room full of Hezbollah special forces who were literally in the middle of discussing plans to invade northern Israel Oct. 7-style (Operation “Conquer the Galilee”) — that is definitely Israeli resistance.

Everyone in the pro-Israel world knows that these attacks were very much provoked and very much deserved. But now, more than ever, we need to counter the other side’s narrative that says the opposite.

We need to acknowledge that yes, it’s a tragic consequence of war when Lebanese civilians get hurt or die in the crossfires. Lebanese civilians don’t deserve to die. But neither did the 1,200 Israelis who were murdered on Oct. 7, and there will be more Oct. 7s if Israel does not act against Hezbollah before it’s too late.

We need to educate people on the fact that, if you think about it for more than a second, Hezbollah can’t be a resistance movement — there’s nothing for them to resist. Israel withdrew fully from southern Lebanon in 2000, more than 24 years ago.

We need to make two things very clear: 1. the near-daily attacks Israel has been under for 11 months (yes, in violation of international law!) that have done untold damage to civilian life in northern Israel (that any other country would have responded to long ago); and 2. the extremely active threat to Israel that Hezbollah poses in the immediate future if they’re not dealt with as soon as possible.
Israel is finally resisting Hezbollah. Rightfully so. Let’s do whatever we can to make that the narrative. PJC

Rachel Lester served in the IDF spokesperson’s unit for four years, creating videos for the IDF’s millions of social media followers and running the international video department as creative director. She was called into reserves on Oct. 7 and stayed for six months. This first appeared on The Times of Israel.