The Best Memorial to Oct. 7: Smashing Hezbollah

Next Tuesday, October 7 will see an endless procession of memorials around the world to mark the one-year anniversary of the biggest massacre of Jews in Israel’s history.

There will be plenty of tears, mixed with calls for hope and resilience. The memory of the 1200 Israelis who were murdered on that day, and the hundreds who were taken captive, will be in every heart. The heroes who came to the rescue on that fateful day will be honored and celebrated.

One story, however, is not likely to be brought up: the monumental failure of the Israel Defense Forces to prevent the attack and protect its people.

No matter how emotional we get about Oct. 7 and the horrendous pain suffered by the victims and their loved ones, at its core Oct. 7 will always be a story of failure– an inexplicable, bewildering failure from the strongest army in the Middle East.

This is why I’ve already chosen my favorite memorial for Oct. 7: The smashing success of the IDF against a much bigger threat than Hamas.

From the pager strikes to the decimation of rocket launchers to the elimination of Hezbollah’s top leadership—including the top guy, Hassan Nasrallah—I can’t think of a better way to make sure the victims of Oct. 7 didn’t die in vain.

Indeed, Lebanon has become the anti-Gaza. Everything Israel did wrong on Oct. 7 it is doing right a year later in Lebanon.

“How could the same Israeli military and intelligence services that so badly failed to stop Hamas’ massacre on October 7,” Amir Tibon asks, “carry out such an incredibly successful series of strikes against Hezbollah, essentially eliminating the Lebanese terror organization’s entire senior leadership without losing a single Israeli soldier?”

There will be plenty of reports, essays and books to delve into that mystery.

For now, as we prepare for the Oct. 7 memorials, what matters most is that a real turnaround is happening.

Israel is winning.

After a long year of tit-for-tat with Hezbollah, and an exhausting war in Gaza that has cost the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers with hostages still languishing in hell, Israel is getting its mojo back.

The Israel that no one feared on Oct 7, 2023, will be feared again on Oct. 7, 2024.

In the Middle East, there is a direct correlation between fear and existence. If your neighbors don’t fear you, you’re roadkill. That is how Israel has survived for so long– it put fear in the hearts of its enemies. It spooked them with extraordinary intelligence and lethal, innovative weapons. It caught them off guard with human daring.

Above all, it won.

When you’re dealing with enemies sworn to your destruction, you can’t afford not to win.

This winning Israel—the Israel of Entebbe, of the Six-Day War, of the covert destruction of enemy threats, human and otherwise—is back in full force in Lebanon, and you can be sure that the neighbors have noticed.

Of course, this is the Middle East, where anything can happen. For all we know, Hezbollah and its humiliated patron Iran may be preparing massive counterattacks. In this region, it’s always smart to expect the unexpected.

None of this, however, can take away from what Israel has accomplished in just a few short weeks. After being embarrassed a year ago, it has regained its fearsome status as the state you never want to mess with. And regardless of what a timid world says, Israel is far from done and seems to have plenty more up its sleeve. It is weakening Iran’s proxies and weakening Iran in the process.

If you ask me, that is as good a memorial to Oct. 7 as it gets.