After Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah, do calls for a ceasefire make sense?

A rare airstrike on Beirut, Lebanon, launched by Israel on Friday that reportedly killed about a dozen Hezbollah terrorists, including some who were instrumental in a 1983 attack against the U.S., has some on the right defending the actions of the Jewish state while the left appears to be taking a wait-and see approach.

As of Friday evening, the White House has yet to weigh in on the airstrikes, nor had Democratic members of Congress such as Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, or others who have been critical of Israel and have repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the region.

The airstrikes came just days after pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded in an attack widely attributed to Israel. Unlike with the airstrikes, Ocasio-Cortez immediately weighed in about the pagers, posting Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter: “This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.” The congresswoman said Friday her Capitol Hill office was vandalized on Thursday after she criticized the pager attacks.

Israeli officials said the airstrikes Friday killed Ibrahim Aqil and Fouad Shukr, both of whom were wanted by the U.S. State Department for their roles in the bombings of an overseas Marine Cops barracks and a U.S. embassy where 300 people were killed in 1983.

While prominent lawmakers on both sides were largely mum Friday, the U.N. Security Council was warning about the ramifications of an escalating conflict.

American diplomat Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N.'s undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs, called for maximum restraint in the Middle East, saying: “The risk of further expansion of this cycle of violence is extremely serious, and poses a grave threat to the stability of Lebanon, Israel and the whole region.” 

But some Republicans interviewed by Just the News said that not only is Israel justified in attacking Hezbollah, it is necessary to bring about a lasting peace and avoid a larger conflict that would draw more nations into the war that began when Hamas, a Hezbollah ally, attacked Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023.

“The best safeguard against WWIII is a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and a new U.S. president that believes in peace through strength,” said Gary Bauer, who served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom under President Donald Trump.

“What would be bad for the world is if the Biden-Harris administration and the United Nations used policies that allow terrorists to escape the consequences of their actions,” also said Bauer, a founding board member of Christians United for Israel. “Israel is not risking a wider war by attacking Hezbollah, they’d risk a wider war if they did not attack."

After the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel practically daily, thus 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated south, and Israeli leaders have been working to make it safe for them to return to their homes. Friday’s airstrikes are part of that effort.

“That is an intolerable situation that Israel must address,” Bauer said of the forced evacuations. “What Israel did Friday is absolutely essential. If they didn’t do this, it would invite further aggression from its enemies.”

As for calls of de-esculation and warnings that Israel’s actions could drag the U.S. into war, he said it’s too late for such thinking.

“We’re already in the conflict," he said. "There’s a war against the West, waged by the Middle East, China, North Korea, Russia, and the foreign policy being pursued now makes it more likely that we will not only be involved in a major war, but lose it."

After pagers were detonated but prior to Friday’s airstrikes, Trump, now Republican presidential nominee, addressed the turmoil in the Middle East, and he echoed such sentiments.

Trump on Thursday called the upcoming election in the U.S. “the most important” in Israel’s history because it will be “wiped off the face of the earth” should Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, win the presidency.

Shoshana Byren of the Republican Jewish Policy Center told Just the News that Harris and President Joe Biden and other Democrats are obsessed with “de-esculation,” which she says is a fraudulent term because it doesn’t take into account who the aggressors are.

“Israel didn’t escalate by detonating pagers," Byren said. "In the last 11 months, Hezbollah has launched 8,000 missiles into Israel. These pagers aren’t war crimes; this is the single most careful and precise use of weaponry in history.”

Byren also said that airstrikes will not lead to a broader conflict, using World War II as an example.

“What happened when we bombed Dresden and Japan? Did it escalate the war? No. It ended it,” she said. “I don’t see how it will bring the U.S. into the war. When bad guys are exposed, they stop doing bad things, especially if it will get them killed. The answer is not for Israel to wait for more rockets to land in their back yard.”

Byren also said that ceasefires have not been successful in the past because Hezbollah and Hamas do not abide by them.

“What would happen if there’s no escalation?” she asks. “That is not the end of the war; that’s a victory for the terrorists, because they’ll keep attacking.”

Matthew Faraci, president of Gideon300 Public Affairs and a frequent television and podcast analyst on Israeli politics, told Just the News that he isn’t surprised that lawmakers have been largely silent about Friday’s airstrikes and, he, too, defended the attack on Hezbollah.

“While it’s prudent for elected officials to withhold comment regarding today’s actions until they have more information, this is clearly part of a larger strategy to degrade Hezbollah’s leadership and hamper its command and control capabilities,” he said. “It appears we’re headed toward a tipping point in confronting Israel’s most pressing threat.”

Similarly, Byren added that Israel has three goals in mind before de-esculation can occur: take away the war-making abilities of Hamas and Hezbollah; end their governing power; and get back the 100 or so hostages still in captivity since Oct. 7.

Added Faraci: “Hezbollah represents an existential threat to the safety and security of the Jewish people, and this issue is only going to be solved militarily.”

Meanwhile, Bauer fears for the safety of Jews in the U.S. as the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel approaches.

“Islamic groups in the U.S. and on campuses are movements that despise Israel and don’t think much of America; it’s amazing how often we see Israeli flags burning alongside U.S. flags on college campuses,” he said. “We’re going to see an unnerving display of anti-Semitism.”