Yoav Limor
Israel Hayom, Apr. 2, 2023
“Experience teaches us that these attacks do not happen without a reason. They are generally based on pinpointed intelligence.”
We cannot disconnect the series of attacks that were carried out last week in Damascus and the blow that was dealt to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operatives from the events of the past few weeks, primarily the terror attack that was carried out in the north, apparently by Hezbollah.
The shadow war between Israel and Iran has been ongoing for many years. However, it seems Iran has been increasing its pressure to act lately. This is demonstrated in almost every possible area: by its efforts to smuggle weapons into Syria and Lebanon; the attempt to harm Israelis and Jews in Athens (which was thwarted by a joint operation between the Mossad and the Greek security forces); by direct and indirect aid to Palestinian terror organizations; and by increasing activeness in the northern arena – with an emphasis on Hezbollah, which crossed a dangerous red line by apparently sending a terrorist from Lebanon to Israel to carry out an attack at the Megiddo Junction, that only luckily ended with no fatal casualties.
Those in the Israeli security forces think that this activeness results from Iran’s assumption that Israel is preoccupied with its internal problems in light of the crisis caused by the judicial reform and that Israel can now be challenged more than in the past. This premise is incorrect twofold: Israel’s security apparatus continues to operate as before to thwart terror activity, and an external crisis will actually unite Israeli society.
Over the past two weeks in Israel, it was debated whether to retaliate against the terror attack and, if so, how. On the one hand, direct retaliation against Lebanon will likely lead to backlash and unwanted escalation. On the other hand, no retaliation whatsoever will likely be interpreted as weakness, which will invite more terror attack attempts from the north. Hezbollah already came to similar conclusions in the past, when a lack of retaliation on Israel’s part led to a series of kidnapping attempts that ended in July 2006 with the kidnapping of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, which developed into the Second Lebanon War.
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