Israel and Ukraine are defending us too: why don’t Western moralisers recognise this?

How did you feel when you heard earlier this week that Israel had blown up thousands of pagers supplied to Hezbollah terrorists? I must say I felt good. And how did you feel the next day, when you heard that Israel had blown up the same organisation’s walkie-talkies? I felt even better.

Of course, most acts of war cause pain and suffering, and pain and suffering caused both to participants and civilians – and even to one’s enemies – are horrible things. That is a central reason why decent people prefer peace to war.

It also true that daring, unorthodox, successful attacks do not automatically achieve justice, peace or even lasting military advantage.

Nevertheless, war is in part a contest of skill and of morale, the two being strongly related. I am just old enough to remember the Six-Day War in 1967, when several Arab powers invaded Israel unprovoked and were completely routed. This was a magnificent tale of David and Goliath, of superior military skill vanquishing a bully.

Any decent person felt the same in February/March 2022, when Vladimir Putin, the haughtiest of bullies, launched his “special military operation” against Kyiv and was repulsed by the disciplined courage of the vastly outnumbered Ukrainians.

When Hamas entered Israel and attacked, raped, tortured, kidnapped and murdered roughly 1,250 people – the great majority unarmed civilians – on October 7 last year, almost as shocking as the barbarity of the deed was the glee of so many in the West.

Social media pullulated with celebration. Conspiracy theories suggesting the killings had not really happened were spread by those who were secretly thrilled that they had. Denunciations of Israeli “genocide” began even before any retaliation, loudest from people joyful about the genuinely genocidal actions of Hamas. Those attacks had none of the characteristics of good war-fighting, except, it must be admitted, audacity.

In the West, the excuses, evasions, campus occupations and the anti-Semitic marches facilitated by the Metropolitan Police, all showed a shocking mixture of depravity and ignorance. It was clear that those keenest to attack Israel were energised, not despite the horrors Hamas had committed but because of them.

This week’s exploding pagers and walkie-talkies were part of Israel’s answer to that terrible day of the Hamas atrocities and, more specifically, to the attacks by Hezbollah that followed and have recently intensified. The latest Israeli responses are legitimate punishment and effective countermeasures.

Although they were described by a reporter on (inevitably) the BBC as “indiscriminate”, almost the opposite is true. Israel knew for whom these communication tools were intended and that Hezbollah had opted for such primitive devices to avoid detection. It targeted the terrorists’ chosen means of internal communication pretty much at the moment they received them.

There were, as so often in armed conflict, some civilian casualties, but far fewer than there would be in conventional bombing in built-up areas. Contrary to what you often hear said, international law does not prohibit the killing of civilians in war: sad to say, that would be simply impossible. It prohibits the targeting of civilians and their disproportionate killing. 
Exploding your enemy’s essential communication tools while he is holding them is morally and legally on a par with more conventional acts such as bombing enemy airfields, roads, bridges or trenches.

Like the recent Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory near Kursk, but even more dramatic and central to future operations, the Israeli attacks showed up the incompetence of their enemies. One of the injured was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, no innocent bystander. The synchronised Israeli detonations follow hard upon the successful killing of numerous Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian chiefs, with another one killed today. This sequence shows how formidable is Israel’s response. It is just silly to say it has no deterrent effect.

At the very least, such retaliations weaken and demoralise the terrorists and infect them with some of the fear they love to inspire in others, including the Lebanese people who are their unwilling hosts. Watch Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, speaking on Thursday, as he, of all people, attacks “the enemy” for having “crossed all the red lines”. He does not look a happy man. Now the mocking internet memes are running – I particularly like the one of a Hezbollah fighter staring nervously at his electric toothbrush.

When Western critics point out that deeds like Israel’s detonations won’t end the conflict, they are, in a sense, right. You cannot kill by force the extremist ideas which inspire Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamist regime of Iran. But you can greatly reduce the practical threat to Israel. And if you go round saying you cannot defeat them militarily, your enemies will try all the harder to defeat you.

You can demonstrate that these fanatical monsters are also farcical muppets. If you do that, you improve the chances of those Arab leaders, often in the Gulf, who hate the extremists, and need re-emboldening to help the Palestinians by rebuilding the Abraham Accords which Hamas, Hezbollah and all those backed by Iran wish to destroy.

Read across to Ukraine. Western leaders might be right that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia, in the sense of marching into Moscow. But it does not necessarily follow that Ukraine cannot exact from Russia such a high price for its invasion that it decides to withdraw. This week, a little overshadowed by the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, Ukrainian drones hit a missile dump at Toropets, 300 miles inside Russia, causing an explosion with the Richter measurement of a small earthquake. Like the Israelis, Ukrainians are cleverer, braver and more inventive than their opponents.

When Israel or Ukraine pull off these coups, our leaders should publicly applaud them, and help them pull off some more. Both countries are extremely rare in being democratic pro-Western nations absolutely determined to protect their sovereignty against external tyranny and/or destruction. In our own interests, one might say, we need all the help they can get.

Our leaders should say so. Instead, David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, says (in relation to Israel/Gaza): “I am calling for an immediate ceasefire on both sides.” He emphasises the word “both” as if that is his tough innovation, but obviously a ceasefire on one side just means surrender. His implication that both sides need the same treatment is false moral equivalence and a diplomatic mistake. Hamas and Hezbollah are illegitimate, non-state actors bent on murder. Israel is a democracy existing under law, bent on self-defence.

That difference is exemplified in the comparison between what happened on October 7 2023 and the events of September 17 and 18 this week. The former is a one-day diabolical gallimaufry of murder, the latter is two days of precise special operations.

The BBC has a small semi-resident group of defeatists – including Tom Fletcher, a retired British diplomat, who opposes the Israeli side 100 per cent of the time, Lord Ricketts, a posher ditto, who – more moderate – opposes Israel 98 per cent of the time, and then there is the BBC’s very own Jeremy Bowen, who manages the unusual feat of sounding simultaneously bored and ideologically driven (against Israel).

All three were on today’s Today programme with only the presenter, Justin Webb, capable of challenging their complacent disapproval.

Jesus, who lived in what is now the conflict zone, had a good phrase for the Pharisees of his time: they paraded their virtue saying, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.”

Such people flourish today in the White House, the State Department, Downing Street, Whitehall and Broadcasting House.