Victory by humiliation

Of late there has been much chatter about Israel enforcing the farcical UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to force Hezbollah to withdraw to north of the Litani River, which would, so the wisdom goes, create a buffer zone between the terrorist group and the Israeli border. This is nonsense on several levels.

Consider the distance between the Litani River and the Israeli border. The distances that matter most are the shortest distance and the distance over which Lebanon lies at higher elevation than Israel. On the bend where the Litani River changes its southward course to flow west towards the coast, these two conditions coincide. At this bend, the Litani River is 3 Km from the Israeli border. Here, also, the north/west bank of the river rises steeply to almost 700m, while the south/east bank rises gradually to almost 600m inside Israel, giving a 100-200m height advantage to "north of the Litani." It is one of the glaring flaws in 1701, its eighteen-year non-implementation notwithstanding. However, if you are an Israeli leader after a feel-good factor, you will not mention this, and instead, you will tell the Israeli population that the Litani River is 29Km away, usually a prelude to breaking a promise.

After the three-day pager/walkie-talkie/Redwan decapitation blitz, we also heard much about "sending Hezbollah a message" (I'll resist a joke here). This idea is premised on a misconception. We need to understand that while Hezbollah is an Iranian creation, it got off the ground and flourishes because it provides Shi'a Muslims with a prestigious opportunity to act on Allah's message, several in fact, delivered by "his messenger" Muhammad, that: "all those who believe not in Allah" must be fought; "until all worship is for Allah alone"; that all land once ruled by Muslims cannot ever return to non-Muslim rule, so "drive them out from where they drove you out"; "the Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," etc. Whatever message the Israeli leaders imagine they are sending Hezbollah, or any jihad terrorist outfit for that matter, is going to have to supersede such divine commandments. It's in the name: Party of God.

Messages such as: withdraw to north of the Litani or we'll continue bombing you; or, stop firing on us or we'll bomb you in ways you cannot imagine, are just plain silly. These people want death. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) assassinated Ibrahim Aqil on 20 September, after he had served as Hezbollah Commander-in-Chief for less than two months, having replaced Fuad Shukr, assassinated by the IAF on 30 July. Many will be eager to replace Aqil in turn. This begs the question: if they do not fear death, then what do they fear? How do you get leverage over a people who love death more than they love life?

The answer is not a mystery, it is just ignored: humiliation. Given that Israelis ignore this vulnerability of Arab Muslims, even recoil from acknowledging it, let alone exploiting it, suggests that so many Hezbollah members losing their, well, members, on account of pagers exploding in their front pockets, was purely fortuitous. If the Israelis had thought of it, they might even have tried to avoid this particular injury to spare these terrorists the humiliation because "that's not the kind of people we are," to quote one Israeli social critic I corresponded with.

But humiliate them they did, and to huge effect, whether Israel had intended that or not. In a society where men, in order to be men, are expected to fly into a blind rage and physically attack a male doctor who dares to treat one of his wives, having your genitalia blown off would be mortifying enough. But to have them blown off by Jews, possibly even female Jews, makes it so much worse. Now add to that that you happen to be part of the proudest and most cock-sure (sorry) Arab fighting force in the world, and you begin to get some idea of just how devastating a blow this was. Yet, when such an unfortunate mujahid dies, his humiliation, at least in this life, ends. The plight of the seventy-two virgins in the Hereafter is not the topic of this essay.

There is another, far more enduring humiliation, one that grinds Muslims down for generations, for centuries: losing "Muslim land". All land on earth is bequeathed to the Muslims. They are commanded to take it all and impose Shari'a on it. One Shari'a stipulation is that no ruler shall be a kafir, even in a land where not a single Muslim exists. Now imagine the kufaar reconquering from Muslims land that Muslims had earlier seized from them in fulfilment of Allah's commandment. This is not the humiliation that attends castration of a mujahid, but that attends castration of the ummah.

Imams come close to tears when they talk to their congregations about the loss of "Muslim land", which recalls Aisha, the mother of Abu Abdullah Muhammad XII (Boabdil), last Muslim king of Granada, who upon the Muslims' expulsion from Iberia, chastised him, “You do well, my son, to cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man.” Whether she actually spoke those words is questionable. That they absolutely capture what is at play is beyond question. Sheikh Dr Yasir Qadhi makes no attempt to hide his pain from his congregation when discussing the loss of "Muslim land".

"Drive them out from where they drove you out," commands Allah. Where could this imperative to "Drive them out from where they drove you out" be more urgent than where Jews, the dhimmi sons of apes and pigs, are the one who have driven you out? Those who think, firstly, that "the resistance" is a Palestinian struggle against "the occupation" need to explain why Hezbollah and Hamas, one Shi'a, the other Sunni, one "Palestinian" and the other not, both have "Islamic Resistance" in their name, and secondly, why no Arab Muslims have ever agreed to divide the land, no matter how small the Jewish part.

If blowing off the manhood of those driving out the Jews is the battle, then permanently seizing territory from Muslims is the war. Anyone who talks of giving land to Arab Muslims is directly aiding and abetting the self-proclaimed enemy of all non-Muslims. How much more so those Jews who want to give land to the Arabs. Blowing up Hezbollah's pagers was the resounding success not because of all the terrorists they killed, but because of all the terrorists they did not kill. Each and every one of those who survived the pager blasts who now appear in public, regardless of the state of his manhood, will remind the Lebanese of what had happened to the strongest Arab army in the world and who had done it. Hezbollah is fond of describing themselves a "protecting Lebanon" against Israel. Now is the time to consolidate their humiliation: liberate Lebanon from this curse. A better opportunity there will not be.

There is no point either in "sending a message" to Hezbollah, or in driving them to "north of the Litani". It is ridiculous to imagine that Hezbollah will stop attacking Israel, even from the other side of the Litani, just because they've been hit hard. If Hezbollah were to not attack Israel, it would have no reason to exist. The same goes for it near-namesake, Hamas. Israel can destroy Hamas, ideology and all. It just requires the kind of action that Israel is not yet ready to countenance: annexation.

With Hezbollah, it will be a little trickier. But the minimum would be Israeli annexation of Lebanon's entire South Governorate (930 sq Km) and all of Nabatieh Governorate (1,058 sq Km), followed by the forceful transfer of the Shi'a population, man, woman and child, to the Bekaa Governorate, after all military prerogatives have been satisfied, of course. The remaining population, including the Sunni, would be grateful to be rid of the scourge of Hezbollah, especially if it comes with the added bonus of escaping the Hellhole that Iran has reduced their country to. The rest would depend on the military measures required to secure the southern Bekaa Governorate and the area north of the Awali River, and also on the density of Jewish settlement south of the Litani.

There has been speculation that "deterrence has been restored". I beg to differ. To be stunned does not mean to be deterred, because Hezbollah exists for no other reason but to destroy Israel. Iraq built a nuclear reactor so it might drop a bomb on Israel. Israel bombed the reactor before it could do any harm. Then Syria tried the same thing, avoiding electronic communication. Israel got wind of their plans and bombed their reactor. Now Iran has taken over leadership of the task of driving them out and of killing all the Jews. Who will take over from them once their nuclear facilities get bombed? I have my guesses, and they are not Arabs either. It is 1.5 billion against 15 million. When 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered on 7 October, 1.5 billion were celebrating, whether crudely on social media and on the streets of Western cities, or quietly, privately, with a warm, satisfied glow in their chests.

The three-day blitz that so stunned the world is described as bold, courageous, stunning, ingenious, creative, even mind-blowing. What is now required is more of the same, much more. This is what those who look to Israel to save civilisation are holding their breath for. It is time to take the war to the barbarians, not in order to reach a deal with them, but to annex, annex, annex.

Picture credits:

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=387296

Screenshot from https://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/05/the-last-muslim-king-in-spain/114961

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Screenshot from "Hezbollah On Warpath? Nasrallah Derides Netanyahu After Fierce Border Battle, ‘More Strikes…’", Times of India, YouTube, 22 September 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG3bzBKzdns