Israel must respond to Hezbollah’s bids to change status quo -opinion
Strategically, Israel has shown hesitation and weakness.
By OMER DOSTRITHE DIFFICULT humanitarian situation in Beirut will probably lead to the cancellation of more attacks that Hezbollah planned to carry out against Israel. Photographed: A view of shipping containers at the damaged site of last week’s blast in Beirut’s port area.(photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
The horrendous blast in Beirut on Tuesday, allegedly caused by poor storage of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate, overshadowed the recent incident on the Israel-Lebanon border and the tension between Israel and Hezbollah. The difficult humanitarian situation in Beirut will probably lead to the cancellation of more attacks that Hezbollah planned to carry out against Israel. However, in the near future, it is likely that the Shi’ite terrorist organization will again try to test the patience of Israel.In such a situation, the Israeli response should be different from what it was in the previous case. Despite the success at the tactical level in the recent event - It is likely that the exposure of Hezbollah's intrusion program surprised and embarrassed the "terrorist army' - Israel appears to have been strategically wrong.First, Israel should not have allowed the Hezbollah’s operative to escape unharmed. Israel has also not fulfilled its threats against a possible Hezbollah operation, which means further damage to Israeli deterrence. Israel has expressed its concerns publicly about another possible attack from Hezbollah.Strategically, Israel has shown hesitation and weakness.Until the last event, an equation was created between Hezbollah and Israel on which there was an informal agreement between the two sides. When Israel acted in the Campaign Between the Wars (CBW) against Hezbollah and Iran’s targets in Syria, Hezbollah did not respond against Israel. On the other hand, when Israel thwarted terrorist acts against it from Syrian territory by Hezbollah cells and the IRGC’S Quds Force, Hezbollah chose to respond several times.This is due to Israel taking responsibility for the attack. In contrast to the Israel-Hezbollah equation in Syria, the situation in Lebanon was different.Hezbollah responds to every action taken by Israel in Lebanon, and therefore Israel refrains from operating in Lebanon, except for a very small number of rare covert operations within the CBW.An exceptional case of Israeli military action in Lebanon in Beirut, according to international reports, occurred in August 2019, when an Israeli drone attacked Iranian missile precision equipment in the Dahiniye district.Following the Israeli drone attack in Beirut, Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, declared a change in the equation and claimed that his organization would begin responding from Lebanon to any Israeli attack on Hezbollah operatives in Syria (parallel to the Israeli attack in Lebanon, Israel also killed Hezbollah operatives in Syria).The meaning of the latest incident on the Israel-Lebanon border, therefore, is Hezbollah’s practical attempt to change the rules of the game while further eroding Israeli deterrence. Israeli threats and public preparations prior to the border incident did not impress Hezbollah, which nevertheless decided to risk a war for one operative. This incident shows a low level of Israeli deterrence vis-à-vis Hezbollah.
If Hezbollah succeeds in forcing Israel into a new equation, Israel will have to think twice whether to act against the organization in Syria, due to fears of Hezbollah reacting to any Israeli activity, similar to the Lebanon equation.Therefore, the next time, Israel should carry out a limited military operation (“military round”), in which the IDF attacks Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon from the air. Such a limited operation may persuade Hezbollah to refrain from further attempting to change the current deterrence equation.There is a low probability of deepening the limited-scale operation to a large-scale one or of launching a war by Hezbollah, due to the organization’s economic, social and military situation, and Iran’s desire to keep the organization as a bargaining chip in its struggle to complete the development of its military nuclear program.In any case, the conditions of the current reality are considered relatively favorable in the event of an opening a war, and Israel must take the risk.The COVID-19 pandemic, which affects the whole world, causes countries to converge within themselves and to focus on domestic affairs. In addition, most Israeli children are already in homes, and many citizens work from home.The economic situation in Israel is already significantly damaged. Tourism does not exist, and in Washington there is one of the most supportive American governments the State of Israel has ever known, which is supposed to back Israel and give it a lot of leeway in a war.In the end, a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is inevitable (a question of when and not whether), and the organization is getting stronger militarily from day to day. It is possible that the appropriate “when” is now.Omer Dostri is a research fellow at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
