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. The Middle East appears to be on the brink of escalation toward war, with possible US participation. The catalyst, ostensibly, is two major assassinations last week, attributed to Israel: of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah number 2, in Beirut, and of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political leader, in Tehran. What are your thoughts?

A. As a former Mossad official, I have some experience with assassinations. As a strategic analyst--I have experience with the consequences. In the current situation, the two assassinations find themselves on the same agenda together not only with the threat of war, but also with the hostage issue and with the endless tensions that characterize relations between PM Netanyahu and both President Biden (“stop bullshitting me”) and the Israeli security establishment.

The unhinged, paranoid behavior of Israel’s prime minister makes it difficult to objectively analyze any of his decisions--particularly those directing targeted assassinations. The war threats from Iran and Hezbollah tend to blur the fact that the catalyst for the two recent assassinations was Hezbollah’s killing of 12 Druze youth in Majdal Shams on the Golan.

The status of Israel’s Druze community is a touchy subject. This means that a certain degree of ethno-political tension between the State of Israel and its Druze population explains at least in part the ferocity of Israel’s assassination response. It is far easier for arch-nationalist Netanyahu to hit back at the killers of Druze than to give Druze equal national status in Israel.

Q. Assassinations seem to be a way of life--or death--not only in the Middle East but, for example, in Pennsylvania, too: the recent attempt on the life of Donald Trump.

A. Had Trump been killed in Pennsylvania on July 13, this would have affected the course of American and, indeed, world history. In other words, some assassinations do indeed have strategic consequences. Back in history, the killing of Julius Caesar in Rome in 44 BC, of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Bosnia in June 1914 generated, or at least helped catalyze, major global events.

In Israel, the Rabin assassination of November 4, 1995 appears to have altered the course of Israeli-Palestinian relations and even Israeli politics. The Trump administration’s January 2020 assassination of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, mastermind of Tehran’s militant Islamist expansion into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, set the Iranian drive back several years.

On the other hand, in a recent New Yorker article Dexter Filkins quotes an estimate that no fewer than 18 prominent Lebanese have been assassinated since 2005, beginning with former PM Rafik Hariri. In Lebanon, one assassination appears to be not nearly sufficient to maintain a state of anarchy. That has to be credited as the Middle East standard . . .

Q. In the current context, can we distinguish between political assassinations and the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah senior military commanders?

A. This is not an easy distinction. Over the past ten months, Israel has boasted of eliminating numerous Hamas and Hezbollah commanders in the field. These are acts of war. Fuad Shukr, reputedly Hezbollah’s number two leader who was killed last week, more or less fits this mold, particularly insofar as he is linked to the attack that killed the 12 Druze youth. Mohammad Deif, killed by Israel on July 13 in the Gaza Strip, was the highest ranking Hamas commander and fits the same mold.

The deaths of Shukr and Deif may be deemed directly damaging to the Hezbollah and Hamas war efforts and to enemy morale, thus presumably redemptive of Israeli morale and deterrence. This would seemingly render them legitimate under any definition of the morals or ethics of warfare.

Q. But Ismael Haniyeh? He was the head of Hamas’s Political Bureau--not a military figure and not a Hamas leader who dirtied his hands killing Israelis.

A. Remember Haniyeh leading a celebratory Hamas prayer session in Doha, Qatar, in honor of Hamas’s barbarous invasion of the Gaza Periphery communities on October 7, 2023? Here it is important to keep in mind that, for militant Islamists, it is all connected--the political, the military . . . and Islam.

Yet why Haniyeh, and why now? Why did Netanyahu choose now to assassinate the Hamas leader in Tehran, in the midst of delicate hostage talks taking place under Haniyeh’s aegis in Doha and Cairo, and delicate Palestinian unity talks with Fatah in which he was involved? Why does Netanyahu, whose security chiefs unanimously insinuate that he is intent on sabotaging the hostage talks to ensure his personal political survival, deliberately provoke escalation that could drag the United States into the conflict?

But wait: does Haniyeh’s assassination increase the chances of a hostage deal as the Netanyahu camp asserts, because he was a hardliner? Or the opposite, because he was a moderate? Assessments differ widely. Still, since when is it sound policy to kill the guy you are negotiating with?

Q. You were at least tangentially involved, during your Mossad career, in assassinations of Israel’s enemies. Looked at decades later, any insights?

A. After the Munich Olympics murders of Israeli athletes in September 1972, Israel embarked on a hunt for the Palestinian Black September planners and perpetrators, eventually killing virtually all. Seen in retrospect, Israel’s motives were a combination of revenge, restoration of anti-terrorist deterrence, and--in all honesty--somehow cleansing ourselves of the shame and ignominy of the Munich killings. I see hints of all these motives in Israel’s post-October 7 killings of senior Hezbollah and Hamas personnel, including after the Majdal Shams atrocity of July 27.

Steven Spielberg turned the Munich drama into a movie that hinted at second thoughts on the part of at least one Mossad avenger. I know of no one who had such a crisis of conscience. This was war, not Hollywood.

Incidentally, back in the seventies potential doubts among Israeli insiders were assuaged by a kind of Mossad tribunal that reviewed the case against every target for retribution. Is that a model for state-sponsored assassination of enemies? Or was it a whitewash?

Another insight is personal. It concerns something that happened in January 1979, on the eve of Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumphant return from exile to Iran. That return was followed by Khomeini’s brutal takeover and founding of the Islamic Republic--a regime that has catalyzed so much destruction in the Middle East for more than 40 years. While Khomeini was still in exile, the Shah of Iran’s designated stand-in, Shapour Bakhtiar, asked (separately, clandestinely) the Mossad, the CIA, British MI-5 and SDECE, France’s external intelligence agency, to kill Khomeini on French soil. Bakhtiar’s request was urgent.

At the time, I was in charge of assessment on Iran in the Mossad and, by extension, for the entire State of Israel. Head of Mossad Yitzhak Hofi summoned me and asked for my response to Bakhtiar’s request. “I don’t like the entire idea of political assassination,“ Hofi interjected. “But this is too important to ignore.”

I thought for a brief moment--that seemed like an eternity--then responded, “We don’t know enough about Khomeini at this point in time to warrant a decision.” That response reflected our sorry lack of preparation and solid information about the man and his Lenin-like revolution. Hofi replied, “We’ll say ‘no’ to Bakhtiar.”

The CIA, MI-6 and SDECE gave the same reply, whether due to lack of intelligence or qualms of conscience or both. The rest is history.

Within months, I regretted my hesitation as Khomeini embarked on an Iranian and regional campaign of terror that continues to this day, long after his death. Would assassinating him in January 1979 have made a difference? Was it even possible? These are obviously ‘what if’ conjectures. But had it happened, Khomeini’s death back then would have been a major strategic act. Imagine Russia of 1917-18 without Lenin . . .

Q. You began by linking the current anticipation of war involving the US and Iran to two assassinations, attributed to Israel, that took place a week ago. Why, at the time of writing, is there still no ‘action’, no retribution?

A. Five possible explanations.

First, and most ominously, Iran and its proxies are planning a coordinated, multi-front attack: by Hezbollah, Hamas in the West Bank, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias based in Iraq, and of course by Iran itself. It takes time for Iran to coordinate all this. It will happen any day now.

Second, the US, UK and France are all deploying forces in the region with the goal of intercepting any large-scale Iranian attack on Israel. They already did precisely this, together with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, on April 14--against an Iranian attack, incidentally, that was triggered by Israel’s assassination in Damascus of Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders. At least for the moment, this has a deterrent effect.

Third, look closely at the language of the Iranian and Hezbollah threats to retaliate against Israel. They tend to promise revenge without promising when. In other words, they may be deterred already by the prospect of igniting a major new Middle East conflagration that unites all their enemies and endangers major Iranian strategic ventures like Tehran’s nuclear project. For background, check out the Iranian threats to retaliate for the January 2020 death of Soleimani; they never really materialized.

Fourth, delay is a viable tactic in the Middle East. Hamas leader Sinwar could be delaying a hostage deal in the hope that all the region’s Islamist anti-Israel fronts will now unite in war. Netanyahu may be delaying the same deal until (he hopes) Trump is elected in the US. Iran and Hezbollah may currently just enjoy keeping Israelis on edge, waiting. . .

There is a fifth explanation: all of the above.

Q. Finally, why are the IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet so skilled at assassination, yet were incapable of protecting Israel from surprise attack on October 7?

A. A rhetorical question. We know how to put a deadly missile through a window in the heart of Beirut, but not how to prevent a terrorist horde from invading Israel.

One last thought: Killing enemy terrorist leaders is good for morale and good for deterrence. But all those terrorist leaders seem to be replaceable, sometimes by yet more capable terrorist leaders.