Yonah Jeremy Bob
Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2024
“… the failure of deterrence with Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar does not mean deterrence never works and cannot work with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.”
The conventional wisdom since late winter has been that war between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent and that there is no other way to return Israel’s 60,000 still evacuated northern residents to their homes.
After a series of high-level defense briefings in the late winter, I became convinced, and I still maintain, based on ongoing briefings (and have been right for around six months), that the mega war between Jerusalem and Beirut is not going to happen during this current conflict.
In two to five years, quite possibly or even likely – but not a few months ago, not now, and not in the coming months.
At a 30,000-foot level, the reason is simple: no matter how many reasons Israel and Hezbollah have to fight, neither side’s military leaders want to have a big war now.
Nothing about the fundamentals of that dynamic has changed since the winter.
From Israel’s perspective, the theoretical purpose of a war would be to force Hezbollah to remain north of the Litani River, to stop its rocket fire if it has not stopped as part of a ceasefire with Hamas, and more broadly, to restore future deterrence against any thought that the terror group might have of attacking Israel by land or by rockets.
However, sources revealed to me in the winter that we have already achieved most of our goals and that the costs of eliminating feelings of insecurity are far too high compared to the costs.
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