Axios reports that the United States is pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back Israel’s ground and air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Washington’s diplomatic track with Iran now appears focused on preventing an Israeli advance toward Beirut and southern Lebanon. Predictably, Iran is arguing on behalf of its militant proxies — even as rockets and missiles continue to fall on Israeli civilian areas. These groups, designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and many other governments, have inflicted decades of violence and instability across the region.
For all 68 years of my life, this cycle has never stopped. As a kid in the 1960s, I remember watching hijackings on the evening news — sometimes weekly. The pattern was always the same: terrorists would demand the release of imprisoned militants and safe passage to Beirut. It became so routine that it felt like watching a movie. I knew the cast of characters: Yasser Arafat, Idi Amin, and even Chuck Norris in Delta Force, dramatizing the raid on Entebbe.
In today’s Middle East, Iran’s proxies — Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas — continue attacking Israeli military sites and civilian population centers. Rockets and missiles don’t distinguish between men, women, children, or the elderly. To the people launching them, every target is the same.
In the 1970s, hijackings expanded to cruise ships. I still remember the Achille Lauro incident, when terrorists murdered 69‑year‑old Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard. By the 1980s, I was exhausted by the endless violence and believed that if Arafat — then head of the PLO — were gone, the terror would end. He died in 2004 at age 75. Nothing changed.
The 1990s and 2000s brought more of the same. In truth, attacks on Israel have never stopped in my lifetime. And historically, Israel has rarely known peace in its 4,000‑year story. Jerusalem itself has been besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. While I once assumed the Israelites must be the most conquered people in history, that isn’t technically accurate — but the land has been ruled by a long list of foreign empires: Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Romans, Mamluks, Ottomans, and the British Mandate.
To me, it all comes down to FTWSO. Israel is a small nation under near‑constant threat when viewed through the lens of history. What the IDF has done to Hamas in Gaza reflects a simple reality: no country can tolerate endless attacks on its civilians. Hezbollah in Lebanon has followed the same playbook for decades, and the international community has allowed it to entrench itself militarily in civilian areas.
I know it sounds harsh, but I believe the world keeps enabling these cycles. Weapons flow into Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iran, fueling conflicts that never end. Isaiah 2:4 speaks of beating swords into plowshares — but humanity has been at war since ancient times. The Book of Enoch even describes how the Watchers taught early humans the technologies of warfare. Whether one takes that literally or symbolically, the point stands: violence has been with us since the beginning, and entire industries profit from it.
Meanwhile, many young people in the West seem oblivious to this history. Some wear keffiyehs and wave Palestinian flags without understanding the ideologies or regimes they’re aligning themselves with — regimes that would never tolerate the freedoms these students take for granted. Behaviors considered normal on American campuses could result in imprisonment or worse under the governments these groups support.
At the end of the day, I believe in finishing what must be finished. History shows that unresolved conflicts only return stronger. General Patton understood that in 1945 when he warned that failing to confront the Soviet threat would lead to future conflict. He wasn’t wrong.
So yes — Git‑R‑Dun. End the cycle so there can finally be peace.
Read Original Axios Report Here: U.S. push for Lebanon ceasefire stalls as Israel eyes Beirut strikes
