BLUF
Hezbollah is crying out for peace because it does not have the upper hand. It is calling for a ceasefire because it is weak, and needs time to gather its strength

Hezbollah Wants a Ceasefire Now. Here’s Why Israel Shouldn’t Give Them One.

Ceasefire now? As much as Kamala Harris wants one and would capitalize upon one if it did materialize, the answer must be a firm no.

After exploding pagers and a series of carefully targeted Israeli airstrikes have completely decimated Hezbollah’s senior leadership, the jihad terror organization now wants a ceasefire with Israel. This will come as music to the ears of the Biden-Harris regime, which would like nothing better than an October peace agreement between Israel and one of the major players that are arrayed against it.

The Harris campaign could wave this agreement in the air every time someone pointed out that the world during the Trump years was a much more peaceful place than it is now, and use it going into the election as evidence of Kamala Harris’ superior negotiating skills. But for a number of important reasons, Israel should resist all pressure from Washington.

So far, the pressure for the moment is coming not from Washington, but from Hezbollah itself. CNN reported Tuesday that Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem, who is the highest-ranking official in the organization at the moment (after Israel took out longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of his designated or potential successors) said, “We support the political efforts led by (Parliament Speaker Nabih) Berri under the banner of achieving a ceasefire. Once the ceasefire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed and decisions will be made collaboratively.”

Ceasefire! Diplomacy! Qassem knows how to push all the right buttons to get the U.S. State Department, the European Union, and the United Nations on his side, and even to shower billions upon his straitened organization. Kamala Harris has already sent $157 million to Lebanon, which means to Hezbollah.

Apparently aware of how sympathetic the Biden-Harris regime is to the foes of Israel, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib tried to shift the blame for the ongoing hostilities onto Israel last week. He told CNN that Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire as Old Joe Biden had called for at the UN, but the Israelis killed him in spite of that — or perhaps because of that. However, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, said that this claim was false: Nasrallah had not agreed to any ceasefire, and Bou Habib’s assertion was “ridiculous.”

Nevertheless, Antony Blinken and his henchmen in Foggy Bottom are likely to take Qassem’s endorsement of Berri’s ceasefire proposal with the utmost seriousness, and start badgering the Israelis to accept it. If they prevail upon them to do so, they’ll only be enabling Hezbollah to survive and get back on its feet after the heavy losses it has recently suffered. This is certain from what Islamic law teaches about when treaties, including temporary truces, should be concluded with a non-Muslim foe.

Blinken and his colleagues are dogmatically committed to the proposition that Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with the conflict between Israel and its jihadi enemies and can illuminate nothing about that conflict, but the facts are otherwise.

Islamic law does not envision a state of permanent peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Instead, the Qur’an instructs Muslims to “fight them until persecution is no more and religion is all for Allah” (8:39). If Muslims must continue fighting non-Muslims until “religion is all for Allah,” that means that there is no place in Islam for the “coexistence” that the left professes to value so highly. There can be no coexistence, but only perpetual warfare, although there can be sporadic periods in which a temporary peace prevails.

Islamic law is very clear about when these pauses in the war can go into effect. It only allows for a truce if the Muslims expect their foes to convert to Islam, or if the Muslims are weak and need to gather strength to fight later more effectively: “If Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud… Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim…” (Reliance of the Traveller, o9.16).

This idea is founded on the Qur’an: “So do not falter and cry out for peace when you have the upper hand…” (47:35).

Hezbollah is crying out for peace because it does not have the upper hand. It is calling for a ceasefire because it is weak, and needs time to gather its strength. This would, therefore, be the worst time to conclude a ceasefire. Heedless of all this, however, and hating Israel as they do, Biden, Harris, and Blinken will keep pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire. Netanyahu should stand strong in rejecting this pressure.