Retired IDF general: Israel could not defeat Hezbollah in future wa
Lebanon-based militant group would inflict far more damage in next conflict than it did in 2006, says former national security adviser Giora Eiland.
By Reuters
Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah in a direct engagement and the Lebanese guerrilla group would inflict heavy damage on the Israeli home front if war broke out, a former Israeli national security adviser said on Thursday.
Though outnumbered and outgunned, Hezbollah held off Israel’s advanced armed forces in a 2006 war and fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli territory. The group has a domestic political base and has since bolstered an arsenal that Israel describes as a strategic threat.
Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah’s Iranian and Syrian backers have stoked expectations of renewed violence in Lebanon.
“Israel does not know how to beat Hezbollah,” said Giora Eiland, an army ex-general who served as national security adviser to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.
“Therefore a war waged only as Israel-versus-Hezbollah might yield better damage on Hezbollah, but Hezbollah would inflict far worse damage on the Israeli home-front than it did 4-1/2 years ago,” he told Israel Radio.
Echoing serving Israeli officials, Eiland said:
“Our only way of preventing the next war, and of winning if it happens anyway, is for it to be clear to everyone … that another war between us and Hezbollah will be a war between Israel and the state of Lebanon and will wreak destruction on the state of Lebanon.
“And as no one — including Hezbollah, the Syrians or the Iranians — is interested in this, this is the best way of creating effective deterrence.”
Except for a deadly August skirmish between Israeli forces and the regular Lebanese army, the border has been mostly quiet.
But Israelis have been watching for signs that Hezbollah, should it be named in an impending U.N. indictment over the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, will push back by consolidating power in Beirut.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has argued that Hezbollah’s role in governing Lebanon would make the country fair game in any future war involving the Shiite militia.
Eiland said such a scenario would have “the entire world crying out for a ceasefire within two days”, which would be more in the Israeli interest “than having to deal directly with every one of [Hezbollah’s estimated] 40,000 rockets”.
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Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, June 12, 2010.a |
| Photo by: Daniel Bar-On |
WarSclerotic 
December 16, 2010 at 5:21 PM
Is those kind of strategic estimations that may bring disaster upon Israel, because we don’t want two days of missile firing in our direction. What we should do is a first strike on the shiite militia of such a manner that they wont be capable of doing much damage after. But we cannot do that with the actual conception and situation in the army. May God help us all.
December 16, 2010 at 10:11 PM
Disinformation, our objective is not to defeat Hizbullah but to make them combat ineffective by deconstructing their arsenal. If I was the US I would deploy a couple of AWD’s off the Israeli Lebanon coast to counter the scuds, it is in the US interest to do so as Hizbullah are seeking to hit Demonia. If Hizbullah nuke me, then I am going to nuke them, the Bekaa Valley, South of the Litani and Hizbullah controlled suburbs of Beirut.
May 25, 2011 at 6:47 PM
Things are changing rapidly now but it’s clear that the future for Israel is in question. Soon Israel will once again be surrounded by hostile states, and they will not be run by compliant despots. Unless Israel finds a way to make a just peace with the Palestinians soon, with the fear of Israel being replaced by solidarity and great courage, I think it will be the underdog in any future conflict