by Emanuel Shilo, editor of the weekly Besheva newspaper, translated by Hillel Fendel.
This article was written just after the brilliant Beeper/pager attacks (for which Israel has not accepted responsibility), and a few days before the Israel Air Force's current massive assault on homes and other buildings in which Hizbullah stored tens of thousands of missiles ready for launching towards Israel. Author Emanuel Shilo, editor of the weekly Besheva newspaper, explains here, before it happened, the strategy and rationale behind the war that Israel has apparently embarked upon against Hizbullah.
--Israel must utilize to its full advantage the substantial damage and upheaval suffered by the terrorist organization Hizbullah and launch an attack that will deal it a fatal blow and enable the residents of the north to return to their homes as soon as possible. This time, a genuine and decisive resolution is needed to the problem of Hizbullah, and not just temporary deterrence.--
This past Tuesday, following the extraordinary, sophisticated, amazing and unprecedented operation of the detonation of thousands of beeper devices in the hands and on the bodies of thousands of Hizbullah terrorists, there were some who complained that the whole thing was a colossal waste.
For if Israel actually carried it out, as Hizbullah claims, how is it possible that Israel would activate such a powerful tool without following it with a large, intensive offensive that would actualize its gains?
The second round of explosions, a day later, silenced the criticism to a certain degree. It reinforced the sense that there seems to be more here than meets the eye. It also gave us the feeling that the story was not yet over, and that we actually can rely on the mysterious operators of this event and that they know what they are doing.
But still: We must not allow ourselves to return to our tranquility, blind trust, and complete credit that we tended to grant to the leaders of our security networks before Oct. 7th. The failure of that day was so terrible and so all-encompassing that no tactical success afterwards can exempt us from constant awareness and suspicions.
Israel is good at military actions in which we take the initiative, whether with our Air Force, special units, or cyber warfare. We are less impressive at being prepared for surprises and deceptions on the part of the enemy, as we learned first-hand both on Yom Kippur in 1973 and on Simchat Torah of 2023. And, as we have seen during the ongoing campaign in Gaza, alongside our brilliant tactical successes, we suffer from the lack of a clear strategic plan for decisive victory.
Over the past several decades, our security establishment has excelled at, and became accustomed to, sending "messages" and "signals" to the enemy – instead of striking him with genuinely decisive blows. We tried to deter instead of defeat. We sought to change his intentions, instead of smashing his capabilities.
If that has changed, the burden of proof is on the leaders of our security establishment. They must show us that they have switched their diskette. Up to now, this does not appear to have been the case. They have brought great tactical successes, but the objectives of the war have not yet been met. It appears that they are seeking not victory, but some kind of arrangement with our enemies that will keep them alive, together with a deal for some – not all! – of our hostages, in exchange for hundreds of terrorists.
The Israeli public, and especially those who are fighting our wars in the south and north and who have sacrificed so much, expects much more than that. They want the destruction of Hamas! The residents of our north, too, cannot be expected to return to their homes without a mortal blow to Hizbullah, and its distancing far away from our northern border with Lebanon, with a large buffer zone empty of Hizbullah.
Hizbullah today, hours after the second wave of exploding devices, is reminiscent of the Biblical account of the men of Shechem on the third day of their not-quite-sincere circumcisions: They were "in pain," the Torah tells us, and the sons of Jacob took advantage to wipe out the threat they represented. Today, as well, we need a Shimon and Levi who will take sword in hand and go out to liquidate the enemy. In our current state, even their father Jacob [whose support for the actions of Shimon and Levi was ambivalent] would certainly whole-heartedly support this.
POSTSCRIPT: As of Monday evening, the situation was that the Israel Air Force had attacked 1,300 targets in southern Lebanon in four waves, mostly residential homes that housed cruise missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers, 1,000-kilogram explosive warhead rockets, and medium-range missiles of ranges between 50 and 200 kilometers. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said that by hiding its rockets in two-thirds (!) of houses in southern Lebanon, Hizbullah had turned the area into a battle zone. "We face challenging days ahead," Hagari said.