Israel will never fully eliminate the Hezbollah threat regardless of how hard it strikes the Lebanese militant group, a former Israeli cabinet minister and special forces commander has warned, calling on the government to abandon what he describes as dangerous illusions of total victory.
Writing in an opinion piece published Thursday in Haaretz, Omer Bar-Lev — a former public security minister and commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit — argued that both Hezbollah and Iran have repeatedly demonstrated their capacity to recover significant military capabilities within months of being struck, rendering the current approach strategically futile.
"However hard we hit Iran and Hezbollah, in a few months they recover a significant part of their military capabilities," Bar-Lev wrote, invoking the maxim attributed to Albert Einstein about the insanity of repeating the same actions while expecting different results.
Bar-Lev pointed to the ongoing Gaza war as further evidence of the limits of military power, noting that even Hamas — a considerably weaker organisation than Hezbollah — could be degraded but not permanently neutralised. He also cautioned that success in neutralising Iran's nuclear programme was far from guaranteed.
The former minister directed pointed criticism at Israeli lawmakers, government ministers and northern mayors who have called for long-term or permanent Israeli military occupation of southern Lebanon. He warned that such voices appear to have forgotten — or are simply ignoring — the lessons of Israel's 1982 invasion, which led to an 18-year occupation during which Hezbollah was founded and grew into a formidable force, fighting a war of attrition that killed hundreds of Israeli soldiers.
In place of maximalist military objectives, Bar-Lev outlined four concrete policy recommendations. First, the government must be honest with the public that total victory over Hezbollah is not achievable. Second, Israel should invest billions of shekels in rebuilding the socioeconomic fabric of the north, not just its physical defences. Third, Israel should move to strengthen the Lebanese government in its struggle against Hezbollah, potentially opening a path toward formal diplomatic relations. Fourth, Israel must put an end to settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which Bar-Lev said fuels hostility across the Muslim world.
Bar-Lev reserved some of his sharpest words for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, accusing it of having already deceived the Israeli public about its military achievements and warning that the same leadership was unlikely to change course.
Illustration: Gemini