True to his usual restrained and careful style, the IDF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, this week talked about the price that Israel has been exacting from Hezbollah to date: "Its chain of command has collapsed, scores of operatives have been killed, and its infrastructure has been destroyed." To Halevi's relatively modest description we should also clearly add the pummeling of Hezbollah's infrastructure and tower buildings in the organization's key stronghold in the Dahiya area of Beirut, the severe degrading of the terrorist organization's firepower (a loss of some 80% of its ability to launch rockets), the growing loss of territory held by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and the ongoing destruction of its expansive network of underground facilities across the villages adjacent to the border with Israel. One and a half million Lebanese have become IDPs (internally displaced persons) in their own land. Hezbollah's entire senior leadership, headed by Hassan Nasrallah, has been eliminated, and thousands of the Shi'ite terrorist organization's fighters and operatives have been killed or wounded on the battlefield as a result of the now infamous pager operation.
However, and after having mentioned all this, it is still extremely difficult to argue with an additional, parallel set of facts: despite the heavy prices it has been made to pay, Hezbollah continues to pound the towns and villages across northern Israel. Tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel are still unable to return to their homes. More than a million citizens are still being forced to run at least twice a day to their safe rooms, bomb shelters or even take shelter on the streets behind whatever they can. The constant rocket fire and launching of drones at targets in northern Israel, Haifa and across the greater Tel Aviv area, continues and is even escalating, and the Israeli economy as a whole, and tourism in particular, have incurred considerable damage. It thus seems appropriate to speak not only about what Israel is actually doing in the north, but also what is electing not to do.
Israel has refrained from targeting any of Lebanon's symbols of state power, and above all it is not causing any damage to the civilian infrastructure of the state of Lebanon, which enables the Shi'ite terrorist organization to operate within its borders. It has not chosen to destroy the power plants that are still supplying electricity to the Lebanese or the refineries (in Tripoli and the Zahrani oil facilities). It has not targeted the water system and the dams in Lebanon. Israel has avoided destroying the roads and the bridges in the Land of the Cedars, nor has it struck at the seaports or the runways at Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, even though Hezbollah has had no qualms firing at Ben-Gurion International Airport, causing tremendous damage to the volume of air traffic both to and from Israel. It is no secret that all these items of state infrastructure, and more too, either have or still do serve Hezbollah as well.
Empty words
This lack of activity especially stands out, as prior to the war, the Israeli leadership sternly warned Hezbollah that should it dare to attack us – "Lebanon would be sent back to the Stone Age." These were the exact words of outgoing Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and the former IDF Spokesperson, Ronen Manelis. Current Defense Minister, Israel Katz, spoke in a similar vein in response to Nasrallah's threats of hitting Ben-Gurion International Airport together with Israel's sea ports, when he responded by threatening Nasrallah in kind: "We will destroy Lebanon to its very core and return it to the Stone Age, and place him [Nasrallah] under the stones." Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz adopted a similar, though slightly more moderate tone, when he promised to inflict widespread damage on both military and civilian infrastructure of the state of Lebanon.
But in the final outcome, all this saber-rattling has turned out to be nothing more than empty bluster and bravado. Hezbollah has not been deterred from attacking Israel, while Israel has been deterred from striking at Lebanon's state civilian infrastructure, despite Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. Israel has decidedly refrained from doing so, even when it has emerged that the severe, and often almost fatal blows it has rained down on Hezbollah's terrorist network, are not sufficient to bring about the desired result: it still remains to be seen whether Hezbollah has fully agreed to Israel's terms for a ceasefire, the residents of northern Israel have yet to return home, and half of the country is living a constantly nerve-racking existence, faced with the never-ending rocket sirens, still forced to run among the rockets and the drones to reach the relative safety of their safe rooms.
In the Second Lebanon War (2006), the Chief of Staff at the time, Dan Halutz, asked the then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, to strike at Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, but Olmert, for political reasons, refused (page 89 of the Winograd Commission Interim Report). Political considerations play a key role in the current war too. The US has made it perfectly clear to Israel that it would not tolerate any strikes on the civilian infrastructure of the Lebanese state. It limited Israel to engaging in strikes on purely military targets and terrorist infrastructure, threatening any Israeli non-compliance with either the limitation or total ceasing of the supply of munitions (just as it did with regard to Gaza).
Israel, which has gone against Washington's directives on a whole series of issues throughout the last year (the Philadelphi Corridor, the entry into Rafah and so on), and has remained alive and kicking, should now re-address the question of the immunity that has been granted to Lebanon, its infrastructure facilities and also the symbols of its state power such as the highly ineffectual LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces) with its 75 thousand complement of soldiers, which has not even lifted a finger to keep Hezbollah in check. This is an issue that needs to be reexamined, not only so that Lebanon, as a state, should begin to pay the price of the freedom of maneuver it has allowed Hezbollah over the years in building a huge terrorist network, but mainly to create an additional, significant form of leverage over the Shi'ite terrorist organization, from within Lebanon itself.
Even the smallest hint of action
After all, Hezbollah is not merely a despicable terrorist organization. It is also part of the Lebanese political system, a powerful parliamentary political party. As long as Lebanon, as a state, does not incur the full wrath of Israel's military power; as long as Lebanon itself does not suffer sufficiently as a result of Hezbollah's actions – it will not genuinely threaten to act against the organization. Only if Lebanon is made to realize that Hezbollah will ultimately drag it down into a pit of despair, and consequently then threaten its internal sovereignty, will there be some chance that Hezbollah, out of a desire to preserve what remains of its power in Lebanon, will fully comply with Israel's terms for a lasting solution to end the current war.
Such a probe, regarding the possibility of striking the state of Lebanon itself, has already been conducted in the past during the Second Lebanon War. The Winograd Commission which was convened to look into the outcomes of that war, dealt with this, and this year Israel's political leadership has also discussed this issue in relation to the current situation. Now the time is ripe to revisit this issue, in order to create an internal-Lebanese opposition that might be able to exert pressure on Hezbollah, and in doing so help to reach an even better agreement to end the war in the north.
The concern of any counter-effort on Hezbollah's part to hit Israeli civilian infrastructure, in retaliation for Israel's targeting of Lebanese infrastructure, is much less grave today, as the organization's capabilities have been significantly degraded. A new US administration is currently waiting in the wings, one that is very keen to see an end to the war in Lebanon. If we are able to explain to the administration sufficiently well that the limitations imposed on Israel by the Biden administration (in a similar manner to what happened in the south) have only served to extend the war, and that there is a vital need to establish an internal opposition to Hezbollah that can pose a threat to its status, via targeting the infrastructure of the state of Lebanon – then perhaps things might actually change.
At this specific juncture, even the smallest hint of the most symbolic of actions involving a strike on Lebanese civilian infrastructure might have the desired impact that would pressure Hezbollah into accepting Israel's terms for an end to the war and a long-term arrangement. Perhaps, even the very threat itself might be sufficient, but we really do need to put this option on the table, publicly, in front of Lebanon and the entire world.
Inside Lebanon itself, initial critical voices are being heard from Christians, the one and a half million Syrian refugees, and even within the Shi'ite community itself, as people understand that the current situation in Lebanon might become even worse. Joumana Haddad, a Lebanese journalist, well-known author, and women's rights activist, recently wrote in the New York Times, "It is time to admit that we, the Lebanese people, share responsibility. We fail to learn our lessons time after time." Now might also be high time for Israel to help those broader sections of society in Lebanon to internalize this.
