Michael Bar-Zohar, at 86, is one of Israel’s greatest and most prolific historians, especially regarding security issues. A few weeks ago, he published Iron Swords, Bleeding Hearts, a book analyzing the failures leading up to October 7 and the ensuing war.
Chronologically, the book ends just as Hezbollah was considering its response to the IDF’s assassination of its military chief, Fuad Shukr, on July 30. This later became the August 25 IDF rout of Hezbollah’s attempted retaliation, which in turn pushed Israel into its much harsher approach starting in mid-September.
Bar-Zohar uses essentially all open sources on the most current events but has a priceless number of anecdotes and unique perspectives from his exclusive coverage of titans like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, and others. This insight allows him to ask how Israel and the Middle East got to where they are now.
However, the most important aspects of Bar-Zohar’s book are forward-looking: How must Israel, and the West for that matter, understand the challenge of fundamentalist Islamist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Islamic regime of Iran?
As the one-year mark to October 7 passed last week and the invasion of Lebanon continues at full throttle, the most practical lessons from Bar-Zohar connect the two events in proposing how the current war in Lebanon must end: with Israeli security dependent on Jerusalem and its allies, able to enforce its security – and not merely on hopes of “converting” Hezbollah into accepting Israel and joining the Western world.
Bar-Zohar writes, “I began writing this book on October 8, 2023, after a sleepless night. I had turned off my TV set after watching, on a foreign channel, the horror in the settlements at the Gaza border and, for a change, the boisterous street protests in favor of Hamas in foreign capitals.”
He continues, “I knew that this crucial chapter of history would be distorted and falsified by lies and fake news, as well as emotions, blind fanaticism, insane hatred of some, and foolish adoration of others. I felt that my duty was to tell the truth about these apocalyptic events that shook the world. But to tell the truth now, today, not in a year or two or five. Now.”
Bar-Zohar was cognizant here that October 7 was not just about killing 1,200 Israelis, taking over 250 hostages, and the failures that led to this – but rather how this event and Israel’s response would reshape the Middle East afterward.
Failures that lead to October 7
Aside from a harrowing account of the numerous political, intelligence, and operational failures leading to October 7, which are meticulously laid out in the first 16 chapters, later chapters paint some of the broader trends that developed since November 2023 and continue to confront Israel today.
His coverage of Israel’s first major assassination of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon on January 2, 2024, is indicative of this. He writes, “Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, took Al-Arouri’s assassination very seriously. Only a few days before, he had met with Arouri and advised him to beware, as he was targeted by the Israelis. For Nasrallah, the location of the hit was symbolic. During the Second Lebanon War, Israeli warplanes had pulverized the Dahiyeh neighborhood, where the headquarters of Hezbollah were located.”
With a bit of unforeseeable irony and almost prophetic foreshadowing for Nasrallah’s eventual end – an IDF airstrike in Dahiyeh on September 27 – Bar-Zohar continued, “Nasrallah himself had to run for shelter to an underground bunker in Dahiyeh. After the war ended [referring to the 2006 Second Lebanon War], he stayed in his bunker for years, avoiding any public appearances. Even his speeches were broadcast from the bunker. He thought he was safe in Dahiyeh – and here [after Al-Arouri was killed], all of a sudden, he found out that Israel could readily come and go as it pleased. If Al-Arouri was not safe there, neither was Nasrallah. The assassination also proved that Israel had very reliable spies in Beirut.”
Bar-Zohar recounts how Nasrallah was taken by surprise when the IDF killed Al-Arouri, and again a few days later when the IDF killed Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy commander of the elite Radwan unit; al-Tawil was the brother of Nasrallah’s third wife, Hadda al-Tawil.
Nasrallah struck back at some IDF bases in the North, but they were relatively weak and did not cause significant damage. Bar-Zohar writes, “These Hezbollah attacks were very close to acts of war, but did not cross the blurred line between a border conflict and a war… But once again the upshot failed to meet expectations” for what Hamas hoped for from Hezbollah in helping it fight Israel.
The bottom line is that, as indicated by these earlier rounds, once Israel switched things up, he was not ready for the IDF’s fury and was taken by surprise – much as he had been by Hamas’s invasion on October 7.
Bar-Zohar then briefly explores, in one of the last chapters, the implications of the Iranian attack, the Israeli counterattack, and the help Israel received from Sunni allies to defend itself in April.
He observes, “And yet, the most important result of these tumultuous days was the baptism of fire of the new American-Arab-Israeli coalition that augured a new era in the Middle East. A new era is indeed beginning, bringing tremendous changes to the lives of millions and carrying a faint glimmer of peace. The new coalition, strengthened by new Israeli leaders, may augur the creation of a new Middle East.”
He continues, “The coalition that defeated the Iranian juggernaut in the sky may transform into a solid alliance that could reshape the entire region, establish a new administration in Gaza, and bring moderation to these embattled lands. This is the dream for the future.”
But by the end of the book, Bar-Zohar notes that the killing of Shukr, as well as Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, were “the start of a new stage in the war, with the focus moving from the Gaza strip to the North. That seemed to be the fading away of the Iron Swords and the beginning of a new confrontation between Israel, America, and their allies – and the ‘Axis of Evil’ in the North.
In terms of how the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon – and Iran – should end, he warns that military force will be continually needed alongside any diplomatic efforts and cautions not to leave too much based on “deals” with such parties.
“One can reason with extremists as long as they understand logic and have even a modicum of common sense. Israel could negotiate with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and his supporters, as their movement, Fatah, was a nationalist, not a religious one. But when the rival’s ideology is based on religion – no reasonable arguments can influence it,” writes Bar-Zohar.
Although Bar-Zohar was formerly a Labor Party member and Arafat was far from an ideal peace partner, his book’s conclusion is clear: any final security situation with Hezbollah and Iran must be enforceable by the Israeli military.
A diplomatic deal may end the conflict – as all conflicts end – but after seeing how terribly Hezbollah abused UN Resolution 1701 for 17 years, Bar-Zohar clearly feels that resolving the current conflict cannot rest merely on an, even strengthened, international peacekeeping force hopefully doing its job.
He finishes with a dark prediction that “the Israel-Hamas confrontation is the first battle of a new World War, a war between the modern world and the ferocious fanatics of radical Islam. A new kind of war. Not the wars to which the world has grown accustomed, fought with armies, tanks, planes, and infantry firing and charging and shouting Hurray – but a war against enemies who aim to destroy the free world from within.”