Editorial: With Its Overwhelming Use Of Tech, Is Israel Being Excessive?

The Israeli intelligence and technological excellence that was on display in Beirut last week may not be enough to return the war-torn region in West Asia to a modicum of normalcy. For, despite being humiliated in its home as nearly 3,000-odd people found their pagers and walkie-talkies exploding in their hands and pockets, leaving dozens dead and several hundred injured, Hezbollah, the Iran-backed banned terrorist organization, will still feel obliged to respond in kind. In other words, no ceasefire either in the near one- year- long Gaza war nor in the northern part of Israel bordering Lebanon is on the cards in the near future. Ordinary people living in Lebanon would now live in greater dread than ever before of war reaching their very doorstep any moment. Whether the coordinated explosions in pagers and walkie-talkies and the targeted murder of Hezbollah’s military commander in Beirut a day later constituted a pre-emptive strike by Israel meant to forestall a ground attack by the Iran-backed terrorist outfit is not known. But what is clear is that Benjamin Netanyahu will not stop waging the war against Hamas and Hezbollah so long as the two terrorist outfits are not vanquished to his satisfaction. It may be a salutary goal, but the truth is that so long as justice eludes ordinary Palestinians, which under the circumstances lies in an internationally recognized two-state solution, there can be no lasting peace in West Asia. For lasting peace, the Arab street must feel that the long-suffering Palestinians have found their own independent, sovereign home, and are no longer trapped between their pretend-saviors like Hamas and the resolute defenders of territorial integrity like Israel. Indeed, the nowhere- people get but only lip sympathy from most petro-dollar sheikhdoms, settling them within their own fiefdoms proportionate to their size and wealth is an idea that seems to have escaped the self-styled Islamic zealots. Why should it be the responsibility of the wealthy western nations alone to arrange peace in West Asia? A sense of equity and justice would inform a plan whereby Palestinians could be found a lasting home among their co-religionists without in any way impinging on the degradingly extravagant life-styles of the Muslim monarchies. Israel might seem to be using excessive force to repulse terror, but can there be any questioning about its right to survive in a wholly hostile neighborhood?

Israel Spy Agency Mossad Planted Explosives In Hezbollah Pagers Before Their Import Into Lebanon: Report