Alongside the recognition of the critical importance of strategic deterrence, it is important not to develop unrealistic expectations from Israel's impressive success in this area. Given the massive motivation of Israel's enemies to harm it, one should not expect existing deterrence to ward off the constant provocations by radical Arab elements, nor can it prevent the development of serious threats.
Israel's efforts to generate and maintain deterrence have succeeded in ensuring wide gaps between rounds of hostilities, as well as in minimizing the damage they inflict, but they have not and cannot produce a constant lull.
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One must differentiate, however, between the deterrence required against the familiar and ongoing Arab threat, and the relatively new challenge Iran and its proxies pose.
The motivation for constant skirmishes with Israel is deeply rooted in Arab societies' historic failure to cope with the challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries. These companies tend to rationalize this abject failure by blaming external parties, especially and West and Israel instead of profoundly changing their tribal political culture to escape their ongoing plight in modern times.
Their ruling elites have chosen to deny the legitimacy of Jewish sovereign existence, describing Israel as a "colonial project." The radicals among them are addicted to violence and are worshiped for inflicting terror and agony.
Even among themselves, Arabs in the region tend to resort to violent measures, and the pluralistic approach of "live and let live" is apparently not very popular in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip. They have no qualms about using violence against Israel and are only reluctant to do so when they fear its retaliation.
In the spectrum of Arab societies there are profound differences in the willingness to resort to violence in the fight against Israel: Jordan has been averse to that for about a century; Egypt maintains a strategic partnership with Israel over border security; Syria has, for decades, avoided a direct confrontation with Israel on its borders; and even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that a violent confrontation with Israel is detrimental to the Palestinian cause.
But this is very tenuous: Jordan caved into Egyptian pressure and joined the war in 1967 and it has also allowed the PLO to operate from its soil, despite the risk it posed to its sovereign existence. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood could have provoked hostilities with Israel had it not been ousted in 2013, and Syria used Lebanon to attack Israel rather than its own soil.
The problem is that irresponsible radicals elements in the region enjoy the support of millions of people. In a society that does not prioritize a constructive effort to ensure a better life for its people, many "get a kick" out of these radicals' ability to harm Israel.
Recently, they have been able to use commonly available advanced technology to inflict harm, and Iran is more than happy to back anyone who is willing to do its bidding in this sense.
The implications for Israel are far-reaching: In the coming generations, it can expect nothing but repeating flare-ups on its borders, which means Israel and its public will have to develop increase resilience vis-à-vis near-constant low-intensity provocations. Strategic deterrence can, at best, removes Israel's most dogged enemies from the cycle of violence, thus mitigating worst-case war scenarios.
