Facing the Cedars of Lebanon, Israel’s “Moral Deficit”

What answer can be given to Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, when he taunts Lebanon by declaring that “soon, fire will consume its cedars?” What response is there to Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, who mocks Lebanon by saying that his son asks him “to leave something for him to destroy?” Israeli officials should choose their words more carefully. Words carry consequences.

Katz invokes the Book of Zechariah: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars! … Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled! The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined” (Zechariah 11:1–3).

In this passage, to threaten the cedars is symbolically to threaten an entire country – its cultural inheritance, its history, and its identity. That is no small thing to say of a nation whose legacy stretches back millennia, as Lebanon’s does.

As has already been noted, such biblical references are meant to normalize war within Israeli public opinion – to legitimize it, to suggest that it has been foretold. That is precisely why it is crucial to answer Israel Katz on a different register. Experience has shown that bellicose rhetoric only deepens the cycle of violence; it builds neither justice nor lasting peace. On the contrary, it risks fueling further escalation and animosity between peoples at the very moment talks are beginning toward, at the very least, a permanent cessation of hostilities.

A diplomatic response – one that reaffirms international law, national sovereignty, and the necessity of dialogue – therefore constitutes the course that is both the fairest and the most pragmatic in protecting future generations and regional stability, while avoiding the trap of reciprocal provocation.

The Moral Stakes of Language

From an ethical standpoint, it is equally important to recall that violence – or threats directed against others – must never become a legacy to be passed on. When a public figure says that his son asks him to leave him “something to destroy,” he casts himself as an educator in hatred and violence. The Israeli minister’s words are the last thing a father should repeat before his son, gravely wounded in Lebanon. On the contrary, Israeli political leaders have a duty to protect, educate, and transmit principles of justice, responsibility, and mutual respect to their people, rather than pouring oil on the fire.

One Must Never Laugh at Another’s Misfortune

It scarcely needs saying how immoral it is to laugh at another person’s suffering. In our childhood, our elders would reprimand us whenever we mocked someone else’s physical defect – a hunchback, some other deformity, or even a speech impediment. To teach us respect, we were told that God might afflict us with the very hump or flaw we had ridiculed. In this way, we learned that there exists an invisible justice, immanent within creation itself, that restores human balance whenever it is broken.

Unexpectedly, this subtle law of justice – or of balance – can also be found in the Book of Proverbs, one of the most frequently cited books of the Bible: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles,” the Book of Proverbs warns, “lest, seeing it (also translated as ‘your wickedness’), God change His mind” (Proverbs 21).

The Book of Proverbs is perhaps one of the foundations of our shared sense of civility. In the civilization common to the Semitic peoples of the region, words are never without consequence. This idea is also present throughout the Psalms, where it is said that those who seek to harm others ultimately become trapped in their own schemes.

In Psalm 7, it is written that “he makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.” The image conveys the idea that threats or violence ultimately rebound upon the aggressor.

In Psalm 37, it is advised: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers … For the evildoers draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy … but their swords shall enter their own hearts, and their bows shall be broken.”

This is a poetic and moral way of recalling that unjust violence does not ultimately prevail. The figurative language of these maxims of practical wisdom suggests that wickedness, violence, and destruction often turn back upon those who devise them. The Psalms frequently combine these two motifs: the reversal of threats against the aggressor, and the protection and/or reward of the righteous.

The Memory of the Villages

Beyond symbolism, Lebanon also carries within it the centuries-old memory of the villages of South Lebanon that Israeli bulldozers are destroying. South Lebanon is part of the land trodden by the feet of Christ and, in the eyes of Lebanese – particularly Christians – it is worth as much as all the other treasures of the country combined, including the Holy Valley and the Cedars, Baalbek, and Beiteddine.

Every Lebanese person feels, in the face of vanished villages, an intimate pain, but also a call to resilience and a trust in the destiny of their country. To enter a Lebanese home as a guest is to be welcomed as if one were at home; to enter it as an enemy is to condemn oneself to misfortune.

The country emerged as an independent state after centuries of migrations, invasions, dominations, and external and internal pressures. Today, it continues to defend a sovereignty and territorial integrity that were hard won. Threatening its people or its national symbols will not paralyze it. On the contrary, such rhetoric only strengthens its determination, as well as that of its friends and partners, to continue confidently privileging what makes it strong: dialogue, diplomacy, and collective responsibility. To borrow the imagery of the prophet Zechariah, the reckoning will come later for the bad shepherds who left the flock’s pen unguarded – that is, the country’s borders.

Freedom and Pluralism

Faced with threats and provocations, responses must therefore be rooted in our deeper cultural tradition. Diplomacy, caution, prudence, and a solid understanding of both our own files and those of the adversary of the moment – alongside a reaffirmation of ethical principles and sovereign rights – constitute the most effective answer to incendiary rhetoric directed our way.

In this sense, Lebanon’s true strength lies in its ability to resist provocation, to uphold justice – including the right of the Palestinians to an independent state, in close coordination with all member states of the Arab League – and to transmit urbi et orbi the values of freedom, pluralism, and dialogue at the heart of Lebanon’s historical mission.

The Synagogue of Beirut

In a recent interview given to the daily La Croix (20 April), Avraham Burg, former Labor president of the Knesset, of the Jewish Agency, and of the World Zionist Organization, does not hesitate to speak of Israel’s “moral bankruptcy,” with its soldiers razing Lebanese villages, looting homes, and desecrating religious symbols. “Israel is currently completely corrupt on a moral level,” he says, expressing particular outrage at the law on the death penalty applied selectively to Palestinians found guilty of “terrorism.”

“More broadly,” he continues, “the government has compromised Judaism, the universality of justice, and all the values according to which Israel claimed to operate.”

“Somewhat surprisingly,” the former Labor leader adds, “the only voice in favor of a sensitive and responsible humanity is that of the Pope. Leo XIV has avoided politics as much as possible, but he can no longer do so. And that is why, in a very dialectical way, he represents my spirituality and my value system, and not the rabbis.”

One is tempted to say the same of Lebanon, whose Constitution grants a place to the Jewish community on an equal footing with the country’s seventeen other confessional components, and where the synagogue destroyed during the war has been restored and now occupies a prominent place in the historic center of Beirut.