Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.
Q. Was the simultaneous explosion of thousands of pagers on September 17, followed a day later by walky-talkies, Israel’s biggest blow to date against Hezbollah?
A. First of all, note that Israel does not acknowledge responsibility for these attacks. Nor should it; let Hezbollah figure it out.
But ‘biggest blow’? This was a brilliant operation in terms of conception and execution. But the desire to crown it with superlatives is problematic. The current situation is far more complicated.
Q. Because of the issue of timing?
A. Indeed. The disabling of the beepers, following upon Israel’s evident prolonged success in neutralizing Hezbollah cellphone communication through intercepts, should logically have been the opening move in a broader military campaign to silence Hezbollah once and for all. That this was not the case appears to reflect the suspicion that Hezbollah was about to discover that its communications gadgets had been tampered with. It also (see below, Bottom line) reflects Israel’s prolonged lack of a strategy for dealing with Hezbollah.
Alternately, or in addition, the Byzantine politics within PM Netanyahu’s coalition--he was planning, in order to expand and fortify his rule, to replace Defense Minister Galant with the inexperienced Gideon Saar--may have affected the timing in some equally irrational manner.
Q. So was there a bigger blow?
A. Paradoxically, or perversely, or fortunately, what was arguably the ‘biggest blow’, at least to date, came within a day or two. The Hezbollah military leadership, particularly that of the elite Radwan Force, was summoned to meet in a basement bunker in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in order to plan its response to the beeper and walky-talky explosions. The absence of a foolproof means of communication to summon the meeting meant that the IDF could locate the gathering and attack it. Ibrahim Aqeel, Hezbollah’s de facto military leader, and 15 other high-ranking officers were killed, a virtual decapitation.
All told, within a few days Israel, or ostensibly Israel, had killed some 70 Lebanese and wounded some 3,000--mostly senior Hezbollah personnel but inevitably some civilians too (and those numbers are growing daily, with news of more strikes today). It had also pointedly amended its (tactical) war objectives regarding northern Israel to include the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homes. Taken together, these developments mean that the focus of Israel’s yearlong war is moving from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon. Defense Minister Galant acknowledged as much when he stated last week, “The center of gravity is moving towards the north” and redeployed 98 Division from Gaza to northern Israel.
Yet note: Israel has not ‘won’ the war in Gaza. With military pressure reduced and given that Israel still has no long-term strategy for Gaza, Hamas can be expected to effect something of a comeback.
Q. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of violating ‘red lines’ in its attacks on pagers. A variety of commentators described last week’s events as somehow disturbing a years-long equilibrium between Hezbollah and Israel.
A. Really? Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran. Both consistently speak of their mission of destroying Israel. (So, by the way, does Gaza-based Hamas, which has the distinction of being the only Sunni Muslim member of the Iran-led Shi’ite ‘Axis of Resistance’).
It seems to me that Israel is free to deal militarily with these existential threats by invoking extreme measures. The beeper, walky-talky and Dahiya attacks followed the rules of war and radically limited civilian casualties. Note that by and large the media of the Sunni Arab world, which years ago stopped calling for Israel’s destruction and to a large extent has come to terms with its existence, broadly applauded the attacks on Hezbollah.
Q. How relevant is the United States, with its imminent elections, to these war calculations?
A. President Biden and Vice-President Harris are, for obvious and understandable reasons, interested in reducing and preventing conflagration anywhere in the world that could negatively affect international tranquility as election day approaches. In other words, this is a bad time from the US standpoint for an expansion of Israel’s hitherto relatively restricted conflict with Hezbollah.
Obviously, Israel needs and wants US presidential material and moral support as the threat of expanded conflict with Hezbollah grows. Note that both Hezbollah and Hamas have been recognized by the US as terrorist organizations since 1997. Currently the US Navy is once again expanding its presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
But PM Netanyahu is perceived (understandably) in Washington as the ‘Republican senator from Jerusalem’ and his government does not necessarily coordinate its military moves with Washington. Nor does Democratic candidate Harris hold back in defending Palestinian rights that Netanyahu does not recognize and that his coalition seems bent on burying brutally.
Meanwhile, the UK and Germany have begun to embargo arms deliveries on a larger scale. These are warnings Netanyahu should not ignore. Yet he appears to believe that no serious American pressure is likely prior to November 5.
One way or another, the US administration would undoubtedly prefer that any further escalation be postponed for a month and a half. How relevant this is to the calculations of PM Netanyahu, whose decision-making has over the past year become increasingly politicized and at times downright unhinged, is anyone’s guess.
Q. That’s the segue to a word about the role of Israel’s dysfunctional politics in all of this?
A. Just when the multiple attacks on Hezbollah took place--beepers, walky-talkies, the Dahiya bombing--Netanyahu had been planning to fire Galant and replace him with Saar. Galant consistently calls for Israel to prioritize hostage exchange over manning the Gaza-Sinai ‘philadelphi’ border and refuses to absolve the ultra-Orthodox from military service. He thereby, alone in this right-religious-Kahanist coalition, challenges Netanyahu’s highly politicized approach and is a major political irritant for the prime minister.
By the time the Dahiya was bombed, and just as Israel’s security establishment was celebrating at least its tactical victory, Saar announced he would turn down the Defense Ministry appointment. By then Saar was seen by much of the public as the ultimate cynical power-hungry politician: totally bereft of both a constituency and the ability to run a war, yet able to exploit the PM’s survival needs to aggrandize power for himself.
Accordingly, Netanyahu might yet bring Saar and his skeleton party of four members of Knesset into the coalition. He could award them alternative ministries, if only to ensure for himself the majority he needs to pass legislation fortifying the Haredis’ non-conscription status and defend his Kahanist ministers’ anti-democratic approach to policing Israel and the West Bank. In other words, in order to survive politically, whatever the moral cost for the country.
One way or another, this coalition seems set to weather all foreseeable challenges until next Knesset elections, now not likely until 2026. Nor is a National Commission of Inquiry into the failures of October 7 likely to be appointed anytime soon. Netanyahu dare not risk its conclusions regarding his role. This failure by Israel to investigate itself means more measures by international tribunals against Israel and Israelis.
As for Galant, he seems to have emerged unscathed in the short term. But he is a marked man on the political right.
Q. Bottom line? Whither this war?
A. Last week, Israel escalated its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet as with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s government has no discernable strategy for winning. There is nothing new here: for some 15 years of Netanyahu rule (and, in all honesty, a few intervening months of Bennett and Lapid rule) Israel has confronted threatening buildups by both militant Islamist movements, listened to their calls for Israel’s destruction, yet failed to develop a counter-strategy. This government’s only discernible approach to the current war is to exploit it to cling to power.
At the time of writing early on Monday, the Israel Air Force was battering Hezbollah, a movement in disarray. Hezbollah was responding by expanding its rocket attacks as far south as Haifa. The rockets are aimed ostensibly at military targets but frequently hit civilians, of whom some 1.5 million Israelis are now in the line of fire. The Axis of Resistance is helping Hezbollah by firing rockets from as far afield as Iraq’s Iran-led Shiite militias.
Could the IDF now invade Lebanese territory? Could Iran now ramp up its involvement? All sides are hesitant. Yet Netanyahu appears intent on compelling Hezbollah to cease its fire regardless of its commitment to Hamas and establishing a safe zone for Israelis to return to their homes in the north.
Striking mighty blows at Hezbollah or, for that matter Hamas--which just reportedly rejected another US-brokered hostage deal--is gratifying. It does not resolve these conflicts. The idea of forcibly breaking up the Hezbollah-Hamas alliance appears to reflect yet again Israeli misunderstanding of the nature of the militant Islamist threat.
Meanwhile, does Israel have the manpower and weapons reserves to counter possible escalation with Iran, which is far more invested in Hezbollah than in Hamas? Is Biden administration support guaranteed? This newly-expanded war could get badly out of control.