Israeli author Daniel Gordis says that the war against Hezbollah is, “The First War, All Over Again.“

… In the last war, when they blew up buses and restaurants and sidewalks and cafes, Israelis were enraged, apoplectic with anger. This time, it’s different. Rage has given way to sadness. Disbelief has given way to recognition. Because we’ve been here before. Because we’d once believed we wouldn’t be back here again. And because we know why this war is happening. …

This is a war over our homes. Over our homes in the north, for now, but eventually, as the rockets get better and larger, all of our homes. This is not about the territories. This is not about the “occupation.” This is not about creating a Palestinian State. This is about whether there will be a state called Israel. Sixty years after Arab nations greeted the UN resolution on November 29 1947 with a declaration of war, nothing much has changed. They attacked this time for the same reason that they did sixty years ago. …

And, assuming that there was little that we could or would do, it attacked on June 12, killing eight soldiers, and stealing Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Not from Southern Lebanon. Not from Har Dov, a tiny hilltop that’s still contested. But from inside Israel. Inside a line that no one contests.

Unless, of course, they contest the idea of the whole enterprise. Which they do. And which is precisely the point. …

But behind [Israelis’] defiance lies sadness, a tired and experienced renewed loss of optimism, a wondering if it will ever, ever end. Because we know what they want. It’s not the Golan Heights. It’s not the West Bank. And it’s not a State. We know what they want, and we know why they want it. …

It’s the eighth war, or the ninth. But it isn’t the last war. It’s the first war, all over again. We’ve got this war for the same reason that we had all the others. We have this war for the same reason that people in Haifa are still saying mi-po ani lo zaz. We got this war for the same reason that we got the first, and the second.

We know why they attacked then. And we know why they’re still attacking. And we’re determined to hold on for the same reason that they’re so determined never to stop. There’s one reason, and one reason only:

The Jewish People has no where else to go.

When will the deluded West wakeup and internalize that Iran, Syria, Hezbolla, Hamas, the PLO plus who knows how many other splinter groups, do not want peace with Israel? They are determined to destroyIsrael. The fight against Hezbollah and the lower-intensity fight against Hamas are exactly what Daniel says they are: the fights for Israel’s very existence. Perhaps perversely, it was not until Israel had made every concession demanded of it that all its population woke up and faced that reality themselves.

The Israelis can no more make peace with Hezbollah than Europe’s Jews could have made a treaty with the Nazi SS.