Security and defense deliberations are by nature to the point. Intelligence comes in, it is discussed, a decision about what to do with it is made, and things move on. When things are moving at a hectic pace, like they were this past week and surely will next week, there is little if any time to step back and look at the big picture.
Anyone who nevertheless managed to see beyond the ongoing, mostly operative and tactical activity, couldn't miss the strategic significance of the events that have taken place here these past few days. They marked the peak of a process that has been in the works for years and could wind up changing the face of the Middle East. Israel insisted, and not for the first time, on its own red lines, and made it clear that it was prepared to take far-reaching risks now to avoid finding itself facing threats that it cannot live with in the future.
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That's true throughout the entire region, from Iran to Lebanon, including Syria and Iraq. Not all the reports are always accurate, but the big picture is clear. It is made up of lots of small details, from missiles and rockets to drones and Shiite militia fighters. All these make up a battle in which Israel is fighting the "Big Satan" (Iran) and the "Little Satan," (Hezbollah), as well as plenty of other threats.
"These days are critical to shaping the future of the region," a security official who is familiar with all the details said this week.
"For one brief moment, everything came together here: Iran's efforts to entrench itself in the area; Hezbollah's precision missile project; the far-reaching effects of American sanctions on the Iranian economy and as a result of that on its protégées; and Israel's open and secret activity," the official said.
This activity, which has been underway in various forms for years, used to be conditional on one thing – not to get dragged into a full-scale war. It has been so successful that for extended periods of time, Israel managed to avoid responses from the other side. This week, Israel appears to have taken its "intra-war activity" one step further, to a point where it could lead to a major escalation and possibly even an actual war. Most likely, this won't happen, but still, anyone who took part in one of the many defense and security meetings held this week could understand the potential ramifications of the actions undertaken, as well as the heavy price Israel would have paid for not taking them.
Nasrallah is losing his mind
The two most dramatic events this week – killing Shiite militia operatives using drones in Syria and using drones to attack Hezbollah's precision missile project in Lebanon, which was attributed to Israel – happened only a few hours apart on Saturday night, but were unrelated. But both were characterized by high-quality intelligence capabilities, which were translated into operations using different methods.
In general, intelligence is the name of the game. One cannot but wonder at the depth of Israel's intelligence coverage (or the other side's ability to stage incursions). The precision missile project, for example, was being kept heavily under wraps by Hezbollah – only a few were involved, and even fewer in its critical aspects. The strike on those facilities – just like the tunnel that the organization dug into Israeli territory and was discovered and destroyed at the start of this year – not only removes one of Hezbollah's major, unique capabilities – it also embarrassed it, in front of its own people and its partners in Lebanon and beyond.
That embarrassment, which reached unusual levels this week, led Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to make a hysterical speech on Sunday. Looking back, it's doubtful that Nasrallah would use the same phrasing again; he made so many promises that he is now forced to choose whether to come out as a liar who doesn't keep his commitments to make Israel pay, or "be a man" and put his entire organization, as well as Lebanon as a whole, at risk in a war that he doesn't want.
Based on Hezbollah's past decision-making, it is likely that the organization has spent the past several days feverishly talking about what to do. Supposedly, Nasrallah is seeking open retaliation – an eye for an eye for the deaths of two Shiite militia members in the drone attack on the Syrian Golan Heights. It could come in the form of an anti-tank missile at IDF forces, like the one that killed two Givati soldiers on Mount Dov in January 2015, or possibly sniper fire like what claimed the lives of two other IDF soldiers at the Nurit outpost in July 2014, or a bomb. But one move is unlikely – an abduction. In 2006, Israel showed Nasrallah that abducting its people means war, and he is trying to avoid war.
But the real response Nasrallah wants to dish out is not for the events in Syria, but for what took place in secret, in Beirut. According to foreign media reports, the fact that Israel took action in the heart of the Dahiyeh neighborhood for the first time since 2006 caused Nasrallah to lose his mind. It wasn't just the loss of a strategic asset, it's that now he fears that Israel is unilaterally changing the balance of mutual deterrence that Israel and Hezbollah have so carefully maintained.
Nasrallah, like Lebanon itself, will find it hard to accept that change. In the past, he has declared that any attack in Beirut would lead to an attack on Tel Aviv, but it's unlikely he'll go so far. He might be considering shooting some projectile weapon or another into Israel, but only to send a signal. Hezbollah, all experts agree, does not want a war.
It's disinclination to fight a war with Israel stems not only from the heavy price that the organization paid fighting in Syria but also because it is afraid to bring disaster on Lebanon that would extend beyond the fighting itself. In other words, Nasrallah is afraid of turning from Lebanon's defender to its destroyer.
A knockout for Israel
Hats are off to Iran for its determination to be active in the area. Despite all the blows they have taken, the Iranians keep on keeping on. After its smuggling of precision missiles to Lebanon was thwarted through hundreds of airstrikes attributed to Israel, they moved on to a project that would allow Hezbollah to modify its existing missiles, and now they are trying to manufacture missiles in Lebanon. After the series of strikes attributed to Israel disrupted the air smuggling route used for weapons, the Iranians began using a land corridor that is long and dangerous, passing through Iraq. After their attempts to build permanent bases for their militias in Syria were torpedoed, they undertook covert actions, under the radar of the Russians and the Syrians. After they failed to attack Israel from Syria, they are now working on setting up other options that will allow them to stage actions from Iraq.
If a stranger were to judge, they might conclude that Israel has won the battle in a knockout. It's not that there are no weapons in Lebanon or in the hands of militias in Syria, but the grandiose plans of the commander of Iran's Quds Force Qassem Soleimani have fallen far short of being fully implemented. Vast amounts of effort, money, operatives, weapons, and technology have gone up in smoke. And still, in Iran, Soleimani is a hero, a man with hands of gold. He sells himself to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the only one to stand up to Israel without blinking. But Iran has attacked Israel four times in the past 18 months – in February and May 2018, and in January and August of this year – and all the attacks were failures.
The war between Israel and Iran is not the result of any Iranian decision – it was Israel who made the call. It was former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. (ret.) Gadi Eizenkot who was mostly responsible for making the Quds Force a major target. His successor, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, has taken the fight forward, and not only raised the risk threshold, but also expanded the area of and character of Israel's actions. The Mossad under director Yossi Cohen is a key partner; Cohen, like Kochavi and Eizenkot, believes that if Israel wants to strike Iran, it must look Tehran in the eyes, take a chance, and act.
The terrorist attack that was thwarted on Saturday was the next stage of that policy. For some time, Israel had been tracking the Shiite operatives who wanted to launch the explosives-laden drones. They belong to the Imam Hossein Division, a Shiite militia that is also known as the International Brigade because its members come from many different nations who were looking for a new home after fighting the radical Sunni Islamic State.
The decision to have these militia members carry out a terrorist attack came after the strikes that Israel was reported to have carried out against Iranian interests in Iraq. Soleimeni was looking for a rapid response, and the formula seemed to work: Israel, according to foreign reports, used drones in an attack, and it would be attacked in the same manner.
Tehran might be weighing the possibility of an attack against an Israeli or Jewish target abroad. Some Israeli embassies and consulates are on a higher level of alert, but it looks like Iran has chosen not to go that route because it would mix it up not only with Israel but with other countries as well. Terrorism is not seen as a legitimate tool, and Iran probably doesn't want to undermine its strategic interest of throwing off the American sanctions, especially when it's possible that US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might be about to meet.
The drones themselves came from Iran. The operatives, who were trained to fly them in Iran, were Lebanese, former Hezbollah members who were living in Syria. Last Thursday, they tried to launch two drones on the slopes of the Syrian Golan, but the IDF intercepted them. The operatives returned to the structure in the village of Aqraba that they had used to organize and store weapons. On Saturday, Israel attacked that building.
That particular attack was thwarted, but Soleimani's motivation is still sky-high. He will act again, no matter who stands in his way – not even Russia, which this week was embarrassed to find that Iran and its proxies were operating within an 80-kilometer (50-mile) zone that Moscow promised would remain free from terrorist activity. Russia was informed of this via various diplomatic conduits and warned that if it did not take action to restrain the Iranians, they could drag the entire region into a war that would damage Russia's interests in the ongoing quiet that would allow Syria to be rehabilitated. The same messages also went out to Syria and Lebanon. Israel was operating in their territory this week, but both kept quiet. The Syrian government said nothing about yet another Iranian attempt to open up a terror front against Israel from within its border, and the Lebanese government said nothing about Hezbollah trying to build a precision missile factory on its territory either.
This reality demands that Israel change its tactics, and not only when it comes to security and defense. A central aspect of its current activity is to make Syria and Lebanon take responsibility for what is happening inside their borders, whether it means confronting Iran (in the case of Syria) or Hezbollah (in the case of Lebanon) and laying down firm red lines. There is very little chance of this happening. Iran doesn't control Syria, but does what it wants there, and Hezbollah does de facto control Lebanon. Anyone who dares raise their head will find it shot off.
A question of how and when
In the past few days, the IDF has been on high alert. It still isn't beefing up its forces, the idea is to play down its signature moves and not offer Hezbollah any available targets, but preparations have taken on a very different character. Some units and equipment that had been moved to Judea and Samaria on Friday to help locate the killers of Rina Shnerb, were redeployed to the North to handle the terrorist attack that Hezbollah was planning. It's complicated management of resources, not only because it's taking place at the end of August when the IDF is supposed to be at a standstill, but because the Gaza Strip – with its own endless problems – is always simmering away in the background. This week, it became clearer that Hamas does not want a military confrontation – not only has it not been involved in any of the recent terrorist attacks, it even took action against those who did perpetrate them and paid a heavy price when three of its policemen were killed in an attack by Salafi terrorists in Gaza.
For now, Israel is allowing Hamas to run things in Gaza. Like in the North, this demands strong defenses to avoid suffering an attack that would demand a change in policy and an unwanted war. The main challenge is to maintain those defenses in the face of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which unlike Hamas – wants quiet – seeks chaos, a battle, and outright war, whether because that's what its Iranian patron wants, or because it is unfettered by concerns about the ongoing governance of Gaza.
Many officials in Israel have long been campaigning for Israel to handle the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Prominent among them is the head of the Shin Bet security agency Nadav Argaman, who for over a year has been pointing out the growing threat the organization presents.
After the last round of escalation in the violence between Israel and Hamas in May of this year, Hamas reined in the PIJ, but they seem to have loosened the screws, and the group is back to its old tricks. At some point, Israel will have to take action against the PIJ, but for now, Israel wants to calm things on the southern front so that it can focus on the North. To residents of the western Negev, that doubtlessly seems unfair – no one would want to trade places with the participants of a festival in Sderot that is interrupted by a Color Red alert, or with the people taking a nighttime dip in the pool at Moshav Netiv Ha'asara, who had to run for shelter from incoming rockets. But in this case, the current situation in the North meets two basic criteria for priority – it is more urgent and more important.
The northern front is urgent because the threat of a Hezbollah response is immediate. In the past, the group took a few days from the time it was attacked to the time it would respond, meaning we're right in the window of time for the promised retaliation. It's likely that any delay in that response will be the result of either the IDF making successful preparations to counter it; or Hezbollah's problem that too "successful" an attack could prompt Israel to respond even more harshly, leading to war. But there will certainly be a response.
The northern front is more important because of the type of threat that was eradicated. Hezbollah has 150,000 missiles and rockets that can do serious damage to Israel, but precision missiles are something completely different: Hezbollah could use them to attack any point in Israel. It could do more than blanket-bomb the country – it could wipe out specific targets, including key defense infrastructure and facilities. Israel could either mortgage itself to pay for defense systems that would never be sufficient or take a risk of suffering unprecedented damage.
From that perspective, the strikes attributed to Israel on a facility designed to allow Hezbollah to manufacture precision missiles in Lebanon was a strategic event on the scale of an attack on an Iranian nuclear facility. It cannot be evaluated in terms of the here and now; but rather by looking ahead for the long term. If it hadn't been done, people here would be asking 20 years from now, and rightly, who was so irresponsible as to allow a new, dangerous version of Hezbollah to set up camp in the Golan Heights.
The decision was made based on realistic considerations, and despite the risks. One might wonder what would have happened if similar steps had been taken a decade ago or more to prevent Hezbollah from arming itself with its current stock of rockets and missiles. But the challenge now is to prevent such mistakes from happening again while minimizing the risk of a full-scale war while also being willing to pay the price should such a war erupt.
For now, it seems that Israel is taking the right approach: the other side is now faced with a dilemma. Nasrallah is being forced to take responsibility for an incident in Syria in which he was uninvolved so that he can avenge what he could not admit happened in Lebanon. Too weak a response on his part could unleash Israel for more actions in Lebanon, while too harsh a response could lead Israel to an even harsher retaliation, which might include Lebanese infrastructure and spark an exchange of blows that will lead to a war that Hezbollah doesn't want.
This equation will lie heavy on our heads for the next few days until Hezbollah makes its move. But it will still exist after the response. The northern front is closer to real escalation than it has been since 2006, but assuming that it doesn't develop into a war that upsets everything, nothing fundamental will change. Iran and Hezbollah will continue their constant attempts to undermine the balance of power with Israel, and Israel will continue to take action, both openly and in secret, on the axis between Beirut and Tehran, to remove ever-bigger threats.
