On the surface, nothing new is happening on the northern border, and many people mistakenly believe this plays into Israel's hands. Despite Moscow's flimsy protestations, the IDF is continuing to attack in Syria, and according to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, these attacks are effectively dislodging Iran. In Lebanon, meanwhile, the political and economic crises have weakened Hezbollah, even limiting its ability to act against Israel.
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This quiet, however, is fragile and even deceptive. We received a reminder of this just last week when Syrian an anti-aircraft missile entered Israeli airspace and exploded over central Israel. Israel retaliated firmly, attacking the Syrian battery that fired the missile, but it was a minor and even symbolic response that changed absolutely nothing from the Syrians' perspective. In Lebanon, though, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was hailed for arming his organization with sophisticated air-defense systems that allow him to push, even partially, the Israeli Air Force away from Lebanese skies.
Nothing about any of this, as stated, is particularly new. Indeed, for years now, the Syrians have responded with anti-aircraft fire every time Israel attacks them. In February 2018, they shot down an Israeli jet, and last year, shrapnel from an anti-aircraft missile they fired fell over Tel Aviv's beaches and the Dimona area. Even Nasrallah's boastful declarations were nothing new because just last year his organization fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli drone flying over the Beqaa Valley. The missile missed its target, but Israel reported that the air force had changed its planes' flight routes to distance them from Hezbollah's missile range.
And yet, this is not more of the same. Israel has been walking a tightrope in Syria for quite some time. Israeli airstrikes on Syrian soil apparently help Assad to limit the Iranians' activities in his country, but he has no intention of severing ties with Tehran. Assad, however, is not the problem, rather Moscow, which isn't hiding its consternation over Israel's ongoing attacks in Syria, even shifting from words to actions as its own planes have recently begun patrolling the skies over the Israeli border together with Syrian jets.
Iran, too, has no intention of leaving Syria, and just as it has directed the Houthis in Yemen to attack the United Arab Emirates, and its loyal militias in Iraq to attack the Americans – it can try exacting a price from Israel.
And in Lebanon, meanwhile, no one expects Hezbollah's missiles to rust in their warehouses. After all, the gun from the first act will ultimately shoot in the third. Such is the case with the air-defense systems the organization has smuggled into Lebanon, as with its efforts to upgrade the missiles it already has with precision capabilities – about which former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly warned but appears to have disappeared from the headlines in recent months.
The situation in the north is certainly disconcerting and Israel must not waste time preparing for the future – whether in terms of a diplomatic or a military campaign launched by Syria and Iran or even Moscow, each for their own reasons, to restrict the IAF's activities in Syria; or an attempt by Nasrallah to change the rules of the game and push Israeli planes out of Lebanese airspace. Bennett's focus on Iran is important in the long term, but won't solve the challenges of the "here and now" on the northern border.
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