President Donald Trump says he wants to avoid more lives being lost in Lebanon. But doing so will require reversing disastrous policy decisions and rhetoric he and his lieutenants have recently adopted.Trump and his administration should empower Israel, not restrain it. And the president should not give Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, a green light to do more damage.This is precisely what he and members of his administration have done. In his June 16 comments at the G7 summit, Trump said, “Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed. And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they are not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.”
Trump went on to say he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “let Syria take care” of Hezbollah. Syria, Trump told the audience, would “do a better job” than Israel.” This is fodder for Israel’s enemies and music to Iran’s ears.For weeks, Trump has become increasingly critical of Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah. The president is frustrated. Iran has dragged negotiations on and the fretting that the consequent rise in energy prices is stoking gas prices and other inflation in the run-up to November’s midterm congressional elections.But Israel is not to blame for the persistence of conflict. It is engaged against terrorists in Lebanon only because the terrorists are attacking it from there. For this, Trump should blame the terrorists’ masters in Tehran. Iran is the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism and it can turn Hezbollah on and off like a faucet. The U.S.’s longtime ally, Israel, has the right to defend itself and cannot be expected to sit idly by while Iran’s minions loose missiles into its northern territory, making it uninhabitable.Since Operation Epic Fury began, the public has heard Trump administration officials such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth repeatedly praise the “unprecedented” military cooperation between Israel and the United States. The Pentagon has called Israel a “model ally,” and it is right to do so.As recently as June 14, Israel killed Ali Musa Daqduq, a top Hezbollah operative, in a targeted strike in southern Lebanon. Daqduq was responsible for orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers in Iraq in 2007. He was just one of several Hezbollah terrorists recently killed by Israel who had American blood on their hands.Hezbollah effectively controls Lebanon. At Iran’s behest, it transformed the country into a launching pad for attacks against Israel, whose destruction it explicitly seeks. The costs for this hostility must be high and cannot be lowered so Trump can trumpet a highly flawed deal with enemy Iran.Like other Islamist — which is to say, jihadi —movements, Hezbollah uses human shields. It houses its weapons, munitions, and terrorists in public buildings, schools, hospitals, and even ports of entry.This has resulted in horrific deaths, notably the August 2020 explosion of ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port, which killed 218 people, injured more than 7,000, and displaced nearly 300,000 Lebanese.But as long as Hezbollah controls Lebanon, many more deaths will come. This is not Israel’s fault. The blame rests with Iran.Israel has taken steps to reduce civilian casualties, including precision strikes and forced evacuations. These have resulted in Israeli forces suffering higher-than-necessary casualties. It is a sacrifice Israel has been prepared to make in order to make its holy actions more acceptable to the rest of the world, much of which detests it.Iran and its proxies have done the opposite. They want innocents killed, calculating that civilian deaths give them leverage in the court of public opinion.When U.S. officials, let alone the president, blame Israel for Hezbollah’s use of human shields, they vindicate the terrorists’ strategy.Tehran has suffered severe losses in the recent war, and now hopes to salvage Hezbollah, its most powerful terrorist force.Iran demands that Israel withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon. Trump seems inclined to let Tehran have its way. The recently signed Memorandum of Understanding ensures Iranian interests in Lebanon.Vice President JD Vance insists Israel not respond militarily when Hezbollah attacks. No other nation would be expected to tolerate unprovoked and indiscriminate missile strikes on its territory.HOW MUCH WILL TRUMP LET IRAN EXPLOIT AMERICAN WEAKNESS?Instead of treating Israel as a strategic asset and a source of leverage to secure better terms at the negotiating table, the Trump administration is castigating and restraining its own wartime ally.That is not a path to peace. It is a recipe for more war.
