Israel Has No Real Strategy in Lebanon — Only an Endless Loop Until Election Day
Israel is fighting on every front but finishing none, as Hezbollah survives, Hamas rebuilds, Iran negotiates, and Netanyahu’s government turns battlefield achievements into an endless pre-election loop.
Israel has no real strategy in Lebanon.
It is fighting there not entirely by its own command, but under the limits and permissions granted by the Americans. Its territorial expansion, meanwhile, cannot stop the drone threat. And beyond the battlefield, there is no political horizon for this kind of conflict.
In practice, Israel has returned to a deeply unfavorable position.
Hezbollah is alive and kicking. Iran is conducting tough negotiations with the United States. Israeli soldiers are dying every day. The war has been going on for two and a half years, with no end in sight. Hamas has significantly rebuilt itself in Gaza. And even though Israel still holds half the Strip under military control, it does not have the courage to translate that control into settlement achievements.
At home, Netanyahu’s coalition of the lower classes imagines itself to be a right-wing government, even as it dismantles Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria. There are not enough working hands, so the answer is to bring in masses of foreign laborers. But Israel can still wave the capture of Beaufort like a flag, as if in the age of drone warfare, a mountain fortress still carries broad strategic meaning.
And as if all of that were not enough, even the imaginary talks that were supposedly being formed between Israel and Lebanon have now been frozen completely.
In truth, Israel has paid with its international reputation, a reputation that does not allow it to conduct endless wars, and entered what can only be described as an unusually long election war. There is no other way to describe the situation.
Even Israel’s achievements are stretched out, diluted, and allowed to evaporate again and again on every front. Israel captured Beaufort twice. It captured Rafah twice. It attacked Iran twice. Nothing is final. Nothing is completed. Nothing ends.
Netanyahu is walking in endless circles, apparently hoping to reach Election Day.
This is the circular reality in which the Israeli citizen can no longer even remember where he stands.
Most Israelis have already forgotten that Israel captured Beaufort a year ago. They have forgotten how many rounds there have already been against Hezbollah and Hamas. They have forgotten how many rounds Israel has faced in The Hague. Everything is trapped in an endless loop - until the elections.
And when elections finally come, the "right", comprised of the lower less educated classes (which is not really right even) will try to make the public forget the loops and return instead to grievance politics.
Somehow, Israel manages to rebel against the laws of history. Even while trapped in endless circular motion, it still somehow survives and moves forward.