![Israel must continue to be able to deter Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar stressed on Wednesday, speaking amid efforts to reach a ceasefire with Iran's Lebanese terrorist proxy. "We need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations. And we will have to act in time, before the problem will grow," the minister told a gathering of nearly 100 foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported. A deal to end more than a year of fighting on the northern border must be durable, Sa'ar said, saying Jerusalem “would like to reach an agreement that will stand the test of time." He added that a ceasefire would be an "opportunity" for Lebanon to regain its sovereignty after the Israeli military severely degraded the Iranian-backed group in recent months. He called for the Lebanese Armed Forces to be strengthened and urged the international community to invest more in the economically devastated country, which is drowning in debt following years of mismanagement and corruption. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also emphasized on Wednesday the necessity for Jerusalem to be able to act against any Hezbollah threats that may arise after a ceasefire deal is implemented. “The condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the [IDF’s] right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah,” Katz said. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein remained in Beirut for a second day on Wednesday to discuss "technical details" of an American ceasefire proposal with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement. President Joe Biden's point man in the Land of the Cedars announced he would travel to Israel on Wednesday night, speaking after he made "additional progress" in a second meeting with Berri. Hochstein was scheduled to meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer shortly after his arrival, followed by a tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following day. “The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” Hochstein said. “So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can.” The Biden envoy added that he will work with the incoming Trump administration on ceasefire efforts, saying that he has kept the president-elect's transition team informed of progress. Hochstein described as "very productive" his meetings with Lebanese officials on Tuesday. “We have a real opportunity to end the conflict, and now is the moment to decide. We are committed to doing everything we can to work with Lebanon and Israel to end this conflict,” Hochstein said at a press conference on Tuesday. Hochstein also met on Tuesday with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and he was scheduled to meet with Lebanese Armed Forces commander Gen. Joseph Aoun. Mikati emphasized that Lebanon’s primary objectives are achieving a ceasefire and safeguarding its sovereignty. He highlighted the need to implement international resolutions and bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces in the southern part of the country. Lebanon delivered its written response to the latest U.S. proposal on Monday. According to Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Berri, the response included “comments” that were “presented in a positive atmosphere.” He did not provide details on the nature of the comments, saying only that they “affirm the precise adherence to [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 1701 with all its provisions,” according to Reuters. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech on Wednesday that the terrorist group had "read the ceasefire proposal. "We have our comments, and Nabih Berri has comments, and ours and the Lebanese government's comments are, Inshallah ['God willing'], identical," Qassem said. "We have decided not to discuss these ceasefire proposals or our comments in the media. All I will say is that Israeli is trying to obtain through negotiations what it couldn't through war." The terrorist leader vowed to “continue our efforts on the ground, whether the negotiations succeed or not. “We are confronting a savage enemy, and we will remain on the ground, no matter the cost, as we will also increase the cost for the enemy. We are facing Israeli human monsters supported by American human monsters,” threatened Qassem. Disarm and retreat Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, stipulated that Hezbollah must disarm and retreat north of the Litani River, but was never enforced. The Litani lies some 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. Its enforcement, along with Israeli freedom of operation in Lebanon should Hezbollah violate the terms of a ceasefire agreement, are the key sticking points in the current negotiations. Netanyahu emphasized during a speech in the Knesset plenum on Monday that Israel will not allow Hezbollah to “return to the state it was in on Oct. 6, 2023. “We will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north, to systematically carry out operations—not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come. Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening,” he said. Hezbollah has launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones from Lebanon at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist group’s massacre in southern Israel. More than 60,000 residents of northern Israel remain internally displaced due to the ongoing rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon. Seventy-six people in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah cross-border rocket, missile and drone attacks since the start of the war, including 31 soldiers and six foreign citizens, according to the latest data provided by the Prime Minister’s Office, updated on Sunday. In addition, 729 people have been wounded, including 497 civilians and 232 soldiers. Of these, 29 civilians and 37 soldiers were severely injured; 63 civilians and 38 soldiers were moderately injured and 405 civilians and 157 soldiers were lightly injured. Hezbollah’s leadership has been left in tatters following a series of targeted killings by Israel, including that of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept. 27. This was preceded by Israeli sabotage of Hezbollah communication devices that killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400 members of the terrorist group. Israel has been waging a devastating aerial campaign against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, including its stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut. According to Israeli estimates, the terrorist group has lost most of its arsenal to the ongoing strikes. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in late October that Hezbollah had lost an estimated 80%-plus of its long-range rockets since the start of the war. Israel also continues to battle Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The terrorist group still holds 101 hostages in the Strip, 97 of whom were kidnapped on Oct. 7. Many of the captives are believed to be dead. Brazil summit Meanwhile, G20 leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a summit put out a joint statement on Monday calling for “comprehensive” ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. The leaders of the world’s biggest economies called for U.S. proposals to end fighting in Gaza and free the hostages, and one for Lebanon “that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line.” The 13-point U.S. proposal presented to Lebanese officials on Nov. 14 includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon would redeploy its troops along the border. The proposal also calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying itself via Syrian land routes. Hezbollah would retreat north of the Litani River, with the border area then being under control of the Lebanese Armed Forces, overseen by the United States and Britain. Israeli officials are emphasizing, however, that the Israel Defense Forces must retain freedom of operation in Lebanon to thwart attempts by Hezbollah to violate the agreement and rearm and reestablish itself. A senior Israeli diplomatic official told Israel Hayom on Saturday that the IDF will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements. However, a source close to Hezbollah told The Washington Post that the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.” Berri emphasized at the time that any ceasefire agreement must not include the ability for Israel to attack by land, sea or air, Channel 12 reported. “Otherwise, what’s the purpose of an agreement?” he remarked. Another sticking point is Lebanon’s objection to the United Kingdom and Germany monitoring the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701. Beirut reportedly favors the United States and France. If the ceasefire efforts fail, there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon, an Israeli military official told the Post. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed the proposal with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a visit to his Florida estate earlier this month, as well as with senior Biden administration officials in Washington. Dermer also traveled to Russia to discuss the ceasefire proposal. Tehran is telling its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah that it supports ending the war against Israel, The New York Times reported over the weekend. Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, met with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut on Nov. 15 to discuss the matter. Two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told the Times that Larijani conveyed messages to Hezbollah from Khamenei that he supported the end of the war and that the regime would assist with rebuilding the terrorist group’s forces and recovering from the war.](https://jewishwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Gideon-Saar-1320x880-2-218x150.jpg "Sa’ar: Israel must be free to act against Hezbollah truce violations")
I recently had the freedom to rush to my bomb shelter as Iranian drones and missiles targeted Israel.
As Israel’s defense systems and help from its allies protected me and millions of others, I was especially thankful for the past two years of refuge I have found in the Jewish state. After refusing to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I fled Moscow. The awareness that I am free while others are not grows more intense around Passover, the holiday of freedom. But this year, it is especially heavy. More than 100 hostages are still in captivity in Gaza, more dissidents are jailed in Russia and tolerance for authoritarianism is growing around the world, emboldening regimes like Iran.
What is perhaps more disturbing is that much of the world doesn’t understand what freedom is.
As the Passover story tells us, freedom is not just about liberation. According to the Bible, after leading the Israelites out of Egypt, God commands them with various laws—from the Sabbath to dietary laws to family behavior. The story of the Israelites wandering in the desert is not merely one of an oppressed people finally tasting freedom, but also the story of a people forming a lawful society. It is the story of a people learning to use their newfound freedom to be responsible for their own actions and understanding that this is central to their destiny.
It is this element of responsibility that the world grossly misses in its bandying of the term “freedom.” In many cases, including much of the Palestinian liberation movement driving the current Mideast conflict, the freedom sought is the freedom to dominate or destroy people who are different, not to build a society that protects the rights of everyone. This is especially clear since the Oct. 7 attacks.
Hamas, which the U.S. designates a terrorist organization, claims that it needs to carry out terror attacks like the Oct. 7 massacre in order to “liberate” the Palestinians from Israel. But murdering over 1,200 people—most of them civilians—is not a path to freedom.
Hamas also oppresses the same Palestinians it claims to want to free, putting them in danger in both Gaza and Judea-Samaria. It uses civilians and civilian infrastructure as human shields, kills those suspected of collaborating with Israel and steals humanitarian aid for itself or to sell at marked-up prices, making life in Gaza miserable.
Notice that many of Hamas’s strongest supporters and financial backers in the fight for its twisted sense of freedom are themselves oppressive authoritarian regimes. The support of Russia and Iran for Hamas should raise red flags, as these are places where governments are free to oppress. Russia continues to commit violence in Ukraine, restricting freedoms there as well as locking up growing numbers of dissidents—some of them Jewish, including politician Ilya Yashin, opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and American journalist Evan Gershkovich—at home for daring to speak out against oppressive autocracy. Iran continues its violent repression of its own citizens while threatening more attacks against Israel, the United States and anyone who fights its terrorism.
Many human rights activists and Western democracies rightly oppose the actions of these regimes, including Iran’s brazen attack on Israel and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But this only adds to their hypocrisy in failing to hold Hamas responsible for the tragedy in Gaza and calling for Palestinian self-rule without sufficient demands for ending terrorism and returning the hostages to Israel. Those who support Ukraine in the name of freedom and democracy should be supporting Israel and condemning Hamas. The authoritarian evil is one and the same.
The masses rallying around the world for Palestinian “freedom” ignore the ongoing concessions made by Israel over the last several decades, offers of Palestinian independence and thousands of Israelis murdered by terrorists over the years. By chanting phrases like “from the river to the sea,” they not only ignore the responsibility that comes with freedom but essentially call for the erasure of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, rather than condemn Hamas for its crimes against its own people.
As Jews sit at the Seder table next week, the tragedy of how freedom has been twisted will weigh heavily on our minds. Israel will remain on high alert for incoming attacks from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. Many of us will have empty seats at the table, left by those killed by Hamas’s so-called “freedom fighters” on Oct. 7 or during the ongoing war, and by those who remain hostage in Gaza. Many of us will add empty seats to remind us of those who are not free to join us.
These empty seats and the fear of more missiles from Iran should be a wake-up call for human rights activists and world leaders: What kind of freedom, exactly, are they supporting when they call for “liberation” in Gaza? In order to rebuild Gaza, see the release of the hostages and dissidents, and let Russians and Iranians live freely, we need more people to call not just for freedom, but for an appreciation and acknowledgment of the responsibility that comes with freedom.