Today I passed through the ruins of what was once called “Iran Park,” in the Lebanese town of Maroun al-Ras, together with my IDF team. It was a cold and rainy day.

Today I passed through the ruins of what was once called “Iran Park,” in the Lebanese town of Maroun al-Ras, together with my IDF team. It was a cold and rainy day.

But when we arrived, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds. The view was dramatic. Looking south, toward Israel, all you could see was life. Beautiful orchards blooming with flowers. Grape vineyards stretching across the hills. Small Israeli communities with red roofs and gardens.

Then I turned north. All I could see was death. Ruins of Hezbollah outposts. Ruins of homes and infrastructure.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how human decisions can lead to either life or death. “Iran Park” was never really about leisure. It was built with Iranian funding, inaugurated with pride, and placed deliberately on a hill overlooking Israeli communities just across the border.

From that hill, you don’t need binoculars to see Israel. You see homes. Fields. Life.

And that is precisely the point. This was not just a park. It was a message, a worldview made physical. A place where leisure and ideology merged, where a visitor could enjoy a quiet moment while facing the very communities that Hezbollah and its Iranian backers openly seek to destroy.

Standing there, between those two directions, the contrast felt almost impossible to ignore. On one side of the border, a nation that overcame thousands of years of exile, pogroms, and the horrors of the Holocaust—yet chose life. Chose to build. Chose to plant. Chose to create. A country that, by any historical measure, is nothing short of a miracle. A miracle of faith. A miracle of dedication.

And surrounding our country are forces that chose the opposite. Chose hate. Chose war. We often speak about the northern front in strategic terms—deterrence, escalation, containment.

But standing on that hill, those words feel disconnected from reality. Because this is not just about military power. It is about priorities. About values. About what societies choose to invest in and what they choose to become. One side builds communities, plants vineyards. The other builds outposts, bunkers, and symbols of “resistance.”

I left that place with a question I still cannot shake: How can two landscapes, separated by such a short distance, reflect such completely different choices? Because in the end, this is not just about borders. It is about direction. About what we choose to build, and what others choose to build against us.

As I write these words, thousands of Israeli soldiers are here, beside me, standing in the rain and cold, under fire, in conditions far harsher than I can share. None of us want to be here. But sometimes, war is not a choice. Sometimes, it is the only way to protect life.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)