Time might have been on Israel’s side for significant portions of the current war, but it no longer is – and likely has not been since April-May.
The Houthis’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Sunday made this clearer than ever.
Too much of the conversation about how long the war should last revolves around whether more military pressure can crack Hamas and get the Israeli hostages back, versus whether a deal must be cut now – even if Hamas remains in power – to get the hostages back before time runs out for them.
Too little of the conversation takes into account how much more vulnerable Israel is becoming to attack on new fronts. Israel might never have taken direct hits or might have avoided taking direct hits for decades more – if not for the length of this war that is gradually exposing holes in Israel’s military power.
In order of current severity, Israel is facing seven fronts of attack: Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, and Iraq.
That’s right: Gaza is now probably only the fifth most dangerous front militarily even though Israel is still treating it as the most important in terms of military resources (diplomatically it may be the most important front.)
Originally, when longer meant from October until January, part of being willing to drag out the war was to defeat Hamas in different pockets of Gaza, while leaving time to move the Palestinian civilian population from place to place in between invasions.
Another part was to use a mix of constant pressure and threats of continued impending military invasions to wear Hamas down into cutting a deal to return the Israeli hostages.
A third part was that a slower war using strategic air strikes, tanks, and artillery as a prelude to infantry invasions of various areas, meant fewer infantry casualties.
The theory was that Israel’s air defense was strong enough to withstand whatever Hamas could fire on the home front up until the IDF destroyed most of Hamas’s rocket firing capability around December-January.
But all of this assumed the war with Hamas would end around January – the official estimate of all defense officials in October-November – and that the other fronts would stay relatively quiet.
But as the war drew on, Hezbollah started firing on a larger number of northern towns and cities, Yemen joined the war, at first only against Eilat, but eventually also striking Tel Aviv, and now aiming again for central Israel.
Iran started pushing much harder to threaten Israel from the West Bank, Syria, and Iraq, as well as encouraging its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen to take more risks against Israel.
Israel's increasing tolerance for terrorism
Before the war, Israel had come to terms with a horrible, nearly 20-year-long conceit that it would be ok with low-level rocket and other attacks on its Gaza corridor villages, as long as this did not touch the rest of the country.
From March 2022 until October 7, most of Israel came to terms with it being ok for significant waves of terror against Jews in the West Bank, as long as not too much of it crossed the Green Line.
Starting on October 8, 2023, Israel decided it was ok for 60,000 northern residents to be evacuated from their homes and for whole towns and cities to be abandoned for nearly a year with no deadline in sight.
Then it was ok for Eilat to be attacked from time to time by the Houthis, as long as the missiles were shot down outside of Israeli airspace.
On April 13-14, it became ok for Iran to launch over 300 aerial threats at Israel as long as a remarkable number of the threats were shot down, people were not killed, and Israel got to deter Tehran in a retaliatory strike against its S-300 anti-aircraft missile system on April 19.
It was ok that Israel got into a huge fight about a partial arms freeze with the US in May and that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, which had warned Israel but stayed on the sidelines from October to May, went more all out after the Jewish state in May.
It was ok that Hezbollah wanted to target 11 IDF bases and northern Tel Aviv key intelligence headquarters as long as the military preemptively struck hard enough on August 25.
The truth is that many of Israel’s nuanced approaches would have worked if the war had ended a long time ago, or shortly after the nuanced retaliation.
And there were critics of Israel bashing it from November onward.
But when time continues to drag on, Israel’s enemies on many fronts have more time to dissect the way the IDF operates, when and where it lets its guard down, and then get lots of chances to test the many potential holes. When time drags on, Israel’s legitimacy problems move from critics to its top allies like the US, UK, and France and metastasize with the international courts from a minor problem to a major crisis.
On Thursday of last week, I was in Rafah in Gaza. There were no Palestinians to be seen. No battles. No gunfire. I had my helmet and flak jacket on. They moved us around in a Namer armored vehicle, but I felt as safe as could be. Of course, there are still thousands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza and if anyone ignores them like we did on October 7, there could be another disaster in Israel’s future.
But right now, they can barely pose a threat to IDF forces a block away from them – and that only if the forces are not in numbers and lack air and tank support – let alone to anyone outside of Gaza.
This morning, waking up at 6:21 a.m. in Modi’in to rocket sirens after months of quiet, not knowing who was firing rockets at us, I felt far less safe than I had in Gaza.
When I traveled to Paatei Modi’in Train Station Platform 4 this morning and saw the shrapnel on an escalator I have walked a thousand times, it was clear how many people could have been killed if the Houthis had fired an hour or two later than 6:21 a.m. This is without even getting to the mass mayhem and death that even one ballistic missile getting through to a populated area could cause.
How the war should end, and whether it should be with a quick ceasefire to get back the hostages or with a relatively quick major invasion of Lebanon, synchronized with major strikes on other parties threatening Israel, is an important debate.
Yet, whichever direction is chosen, Israel should pick a direction and wrap things up rapidly and decisively.
Anyone who thinks that the war can just continue with no price on these other fronts beyond Gaza until after the US elections in November is kidding themselves and ignoring the writing on the wall on a grossly negligent and serial basis.