In the summer of 2000, Israel left Lebanon, moving its forces to a border determined by the United Nations. The U.N. confirmed that Israel had complied with U.N. Resolution 425, and it was the hope of the Israeli people that a painful episode on Israel's northern border with Lebanon was now in the past.

Hezbollah, operating under the instructions of the leaderships in Iran and Syria, thought otherwise. In order to maintain its reason for existence, Hezbollah invented a baseless claim to more of Israel's land and continued to arm itself with missiles funneled through Syria from Iran.

U.N. Resolution 1559, which recognized that Lebanon could never be truly independent as long as Syrian forces and the Hezbollah army existed in its midst, called for the Syrians to leave Lebanon and for the government of Lebanon to deploy its army on the border with Israel and disarm Hezbollah.

After the assassination of Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the people of Lebanon forced the Syrians out. Hezbollah, on the other hand, ran as a political party in the elections, joined the government and had one of its own appointed a minister — but it did not disarm.

In the summer of 2005, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza, uprooting thousands of Israeli citizens from the only homes many of them had ever known. Israel's disengagement from Gaza took a heavy toll on Israeli society, creating an internal national debate and an international one over numerous issues regarding the move.

The election of Hamas, which followed several months later, was perceived by experts as a message from the Palestinian people directed at the corrupt ruling Fatah party. However, the Palestinian choice to be led by a terrorist organization, which had carried out countless suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and like Hezbollah was also backed by Syria and Iran, essentially slammed the door shut on any hope that the positive direction taken by Israel in the form of disengagement would be answered in kind.

As the Israeli town of Sderot in southern Israel received daily barrages of Hamas' deadly Qasam rockets, Israel did not respond, hoping that international pressure exerted on the Palestinian leadership would bring an end to the attacks.

This summer, just two weeks apart from each other, Hamas and Hezbollah crossed the border into Israel and attacked, killing 10 Israeli soldiers and kidnapping three. With Hamas holding the majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature and Hezbollah's representative maintaining a ministerial portfolio in the Lebanese government, the responsibility for these acts of aggression rests squarely on the shoulders of these two leaderships.

The hope for a peaceful, prosperous Middle East, an area rich with resources and potential, has long since been hijacked by extremist elements such as Hamas and Hezbollah. These fundamentalists hold entire societies captive, refusing to accept any form of future in which Israel is a part of the Middle Eastern landscape. This fanaticism is supported financially and politically, and applauded openly, by the regimes in Syria and Iran. Apart from this moral and capital backing, Iran instructs and directs Hezbollah on when and how to act in many cases, just as Hamas receives operational instructions from its offices housed in Syria.

After exhausting all diplomatic options, Israel re-entered Gaza in order to stop the firing of Qasam rockets and retrieve Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old soldier held hostage by Hamas terrorists. In the last 10 months since disengagement, close to a thousand Qasam rockets have been fired at cities and towns in the south of Israel. Israel has no choice in its quest to achieve these two objectives, which hold the key to a return to normal life in southern Israel.

Since the government of Lebanon has not implemented Resolution 1559, and following the killing of Israeli soldiers and kidnapping of two others, Ohad Golwaser and Eldad Regev, on Israeli soil, Israel has taken upon itself to do what the U.N. has demanded from the Lebanese government under Resolution 1559 — disarm Hezbollah and at the same time retrieve two of its sons kidnapped by the terrorists. These objectives, once again, are not a matter of choice for Israel and hold the key to a return to normalcy for the cities and towns on Israel's northern border.

These goals represent no more and no less than what any other sovereign government would do in the defense of its people. While condemning the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, the international community must also hold those pulling the strings, namely Syria and Iran, accountable for the unfortunate digression of the recent weeks. The government of Israel cannot allow itself the luxury of wavering at a time like this. Its responsibility lies first and foremost in maintaining the security of its citizens. Also, the world must not allow extremism to go unchecked.

The international community must join forces and confront extremist elements wherever they may be, but this is not enough. There are moderate voices in the Arab and Muslim world, people who accept Israel as part of the Middle East and welcome a partnership with the Western world. We have seen these voices of moderation stand up in Lebanon, following the Hariri assassination, and bring change. These moderates must once again isolate the radicals and extremists who only seek destruction and violence. It is these voices and these voices alone, in Lebanon, in the Palestinian Authority and in the entire Arab and Muslim world, who have the power to release the stranglehold of extremism and fanaticism that has plagued this region for too long.

Only an end to fanaticism, which cheapens life in the name of unholy ideals, can bring about a peaceful future. The events of this summer have proven this to those who have been paying attention.

Ehud Danoch is consul general of Israel to the southwestern United States. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.