Wars, whether of the Left or the Right, inflict much suffering. The difference is, the Left inflicts suffering cruelly and pointlessly.

Right wing politicians interpret the world rationally. In Israel’s case, they see that Arabs are like Jews. The Jews abandoned a comfortable life in Europe and the United States to fight for their state in Palestine. The Arabs will not abandon their nationalist aspirations for the economic benefits Israel offers them.

The Left build the castles in the air. They dream of tolerance, mutual accommodation, and the end of enemities. When those illusions fail, the Left goes berserk. The enemy audaciously offends their sensitivities. The enemy bites the hand they offer. Rational enemies became ideological opponents and deserve the worst treatment. Leftists act hysterically. Thus Rabin ordered eighteen-year old Jewish soldiers to break the hands and legs of the Intifada fighters. And now the moral dwarf Olmert, with two refusenik sons afraid to serve in the army and a Peace Now activist wife, kills Lebanese civilians.

Taking lives, even enemy lives, is a terrible thing. Only utter necessity justifies it. Lives must not be taken in vain. In Deir Yassin, the death of a hundred Arab civilians gave Israel victory in the War of Independence. Israel acted harshly and unapologetically, and the enemy was frightened and fled. Now in Lebanon, Israel kills pointlessly.

Without political objectives, the suffering we inflict on the Lebanese decides nothing. What are we fighting for? To return the minuscule Shebaa farms to Syria instead of Lebanon? If Israel evicts Hezbollah from Lebanon now, radicals in the Lebanese army will become the new Hezbollah. Killing any number of Hezbollah fighters does not win the war: Arabs applaud Hezbollah, and volunteers more than replace the losses. Destroying weapons caches will not work, either: Hezbollah can disrupt life in Haifa with five rockets a day instead of a hundred. The current measures cannot extinguish popular support for Hezbollah: Israel lost the momentum necessary to terrify the population. Further escalation increases hatred, not fear.

A cowardly husband, unable to divorce his wife, torments her. The Israeli government, unwilling to remove the Arabs from the buffer zones, kills them. Political courage produces results bombs cannot. Recognize our enemies. Abandon liberal illusions of reconciliation with them. Do what must be done, and let both Israelis and the Lebanese get on with their lives. Remove the people from the Lebanese buffer zone.