Northern Israel is full this time of year. No hotel or B and B has vacancies. Restaurants are crowded, and it's hard to reserve places at leisure venues. Everything projects calm and end-of-summer normalcy in the very abnormal time of coronavirus.
It's doubtful whether any of the Israelis flocking to the north of the country are disturbed by what is happening on the other side of the border or wonder why there are Border Police checkpoints set up at various locations, or why there are almost no IDF forces on the border, from Rosh Hanikra in the west to Mount Hermon in the east.
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This civilian routine might be the IDF's biggest victory in the battle it has been fighting against Hezbollah for the past few weeks. The fact that the Northern Command manages to allow it while maintaining high operational discipline for a long period of time, is far from something to be taken for granted. This is complicated risk management, in a situation in which it would have been easy to take a different approach and put all of northern Israel on high alert at the cost of serious damage to businesses and the tourism industry.
It has been five weeks since a Hezbollah operative was killed in airstrikes at the Damascus airport that were attributed to Israel. It's doubtful that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah knew who the man was, but his death allowed Nasrallah to restart the balance of deterrence that he wants to keep active on the border: an attack for an attack, a casualty for a casualty.
Since then, Hezbollah has been looking for targets. The first time, at Mount Dov, it acted hastily and tried to dispatch a cell to penetrate an IDF outpost and carry out a sniper attack. The IDF tracked the movements of the cell and ran the cell members off, in an action that angered plenty of people in the IDF and outside it, who argued that the operatives had been allowed to return home safely. The IDF thought at the time that Nasrallah would take the lifesaver he'd been thrown, call it a day, and refrain from any additional response to the Damascus incident.
That turned out not to be the case. Not only that – Nasrallah continues to insist on retaliation, even after the disaster that struck Lebanon when a stockpile of ammonium nitrate blew up at the Port of Beirut. Perhaps that might indicate how afraid he is of losing his deterrent capabilities, as well as how much he enjoys the fact that for weeks, the "big, bad" IDF has been sleeping with boots on, ready for an attack.
Hezbollah's latest demonstration of its military capabilities was not its finest, to say the least. After five weeks of searching for a target, the organization has failed to find one. It must be said that the sniper who fired was faced with the most complicated challenge possible: a target that appears for a moment, then disappears, at night, at a distance of a few hundred meters [yards]. This type of target, which pops up and then vanishes, is much harder to hit than a stationary one or one that is moving steadily.
Hezbollah sniper cells like this one are scattered along the entire border, always looking for targets. This is why the IDF has pulled its forces back from the fence, and basically from every point that can be seen from Lebanon. This creates the familiar absurdity: civilians and farmers move around and work everywhere, completely exposed, as close as a single meter from Lebanon, while soldiers are at the back, out of the enemy's sight.
This reality will continue for the foreseeable future. As far as Hezbollah is concerned, it has not avenged its operative. The case is still open. Israel might have tried to deter it by attacks on two posts that the organization uses for surveillance (which are disguised as an environmental group), but it's unlikely those attempts worked. Nasrallah knows that he will pay a price for the attack he is planning, but refuses to give up on the red lines he has laid down.
Some in the IDF General Staff opted to take the opposite view of these events, and see them as Nasrallah does. He is trying to stick to his guns, but not quite managing to. Just like Iran is trying to insist on its principles (and stop Israeli attacks against its attempts to gain strength and send out weapons) and failing, and just like Yahya Sinwar in Gaza is trying to dig in (and bust the blockade on Gaza and promote a series of civilian projects while bolstering his organization's military strength), and failing, and like Mahmoud Abbas is trying to stand firm in Judea and Samaria (by making Israel cancel plans for annexation and re-adopt the two-state solution), but can't.
This series of incidents can teach us a few things. It shows the relative weakness of the radical axis – partly because of the IDF's exceptionally successful operations, but also as a result of regional and international processes that are only partly connected to Israel, like coronavirus, sanctions, and lessening international attention for other people's problems. There is also Israel's strategic prowess, which has certainly increased thanks to its agreement to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.
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Israel's defense and security establishment sees that agreement as an opening for a much bigger process. At the end of his term as chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot talked about the potential for a regional defense alliance that would include Israel, Egypt, and Jordan (and possibly the Palestinian Authority at some point) in the west, and the moderate Sunni states to the east as a counter-balance to the radical Shiite threat posed by Iran and the radical Sunni threat in the forms of the Islamic State and Al-Qaida.
Israel has a strong interest in promoting such an alliance. Militarily (to stop Iran), politically (to ensure the stability of moderate regimes), and economically (a bonanza of investment in and purchases from Israeli companies). The price it will have to pay – whether in terms of military capabilities (air defenses and cyber) or diplomatic moves (with the Palestinians) – are certainly worth it.
The defense establishment will push for it during the talks the Israeli delegation to the UAE is scheduled to be held on Monday, as well as secret meetings expected to take place with other Arab countries in the near future. The general direction is toward increased cooperation, and some are already envisioning deployment of fighter jets and joint military drills, inches from Iran.
It is likely that Iran is following these developments with concern. Iran scored a small victory when the United Nations Security Council did not extend the weapons embargo against it, but that won't be enough. Iran will likely do what it knows how to do best: it will try to attack, in any way it can, what it sees as a direct threat to its interests. This means that, much like the situation on Israel's northern border, the last shot hasn't yet been fired in the bigger regional battle.
