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Israel Must Fight Hezbollah Like a State Army, Not Just a Terrorist Organization
Hezbollah members parade during a rally marking al-Quds Day, (Jerusalem Day) in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, April 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
The daring operations carried out by Israel in the northern arena in recent weeks deserve to be praised for the exceptional feats they were.
According to The New York Times, the raid by the IDF’s Shaldag unit on the precision missile production site in Masyaf in Syria hit a vital site for Iran and Hezbollah in the field of precision missile production. The raid not only harmed the accelerated preparations of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) for the war in Lebanon, but also provided evidence of the IDF’s ability to raid and destroy similar sites in Lebanon.
The two waves of attack against Hezbollah via remote detonation of personal communication devices were also very important, as they introduced a new dimension to the conflict. The operation, attributed to Israel, caused significant horizontal damage to the organization both in terms of the dramatic scope of casualties and the disruption of the organization’s command and control. The surprise factor, as well as the sense of penetration inflicted on Hezbollah, are also very important. While it is better for such an operation to be carried out simultaneously with air and ground strikes as part of an all-out war, the decision to conduct it on its own was reasonable if the IDF was in a use-it-or-lose-it position.
It is possible that the elimination of Akil and his command group was related to the success of the previous operations. Some security managers may have been pushed aside in the emergency caused by Israel’s successes, creating another opportunity for Israeli intelligence.
The successes in Lebanon highlight the overall dragging on of the war in Gaza. The political reasons for this are clear and are being widely discussed in the Israeli media. The gap between the IDF’s tactical successes and the stubborn refusal to formulate a strategy for the war in the south — i.e., to come up with an alternative civilian control mechanism in Gaza — is visible to every Israeli citizen. What is less clear is the long and deep background at the level of Israeli military culture for this phenomenon.
In the decades since the 1990s, with the exception of Operation Defensive Shield, Israel has refrained from embarking on decisive military moves. Operational decisiveness, let’s remember, is an original Israeli-military concept.
Israel has never aimed for absolute victory and the evaporation of its enemies as political bodies — only for the removal of an immediate military threat. In the last decade, another military theory emerged — the “campaign short of war.” In the professional literature and in IDF strategy, this campaign is known as the “war between the wars” (WBW) or the “prevention” approach.
Formulated as Israel’s central strategy during the years of the Syrian civil war, this approach was based on delaying and preventing the enemy’s intensification through close intelligence surveillance and countermeasures (mostly airstrikes and occasionally special operations).
Some drafters of the approach stressed that it is not a substitute for the IDF’s ability to decisively defeat an enemy at war. “Whoever wants will prepare for war,” wrote Major General Nitzan Alon.
The logical connection between WBW and the idea of war itself was clarified in the same article. Disrupting the enemy’s plans to build up and prepare is part of the arms and war-readiness race. The balance of deterrence and freedom of strategic maneuver of the warring parties is closely related to the question of how each side perceives the degree of success it can expect.
But the culture and way of thinking of large organizations is shaped mainly through their actions. While to all intents and purposes Hezbollah became a military power many years ago and is now one of the largest and strongest armies in the region, decades of anti-terror operations have engrained strong habits into the IDF.
In the last decade, great attention was devoted to the WBW.
In a retirement interview Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot gave to The New York Times in January 2019, for example, extensive space was given to that campaign, which was presented with undisguised pride as a new strategy.
These efforts bore partial fruit. Iran does not maintain combat formations in Syria of the scope and quality it originally planned. Hezbollah would like to have much more significant capabilities in the field of precision missiles and in other fields.
But for all of that, here we are. The war has been going on for a year and seems to be escalating. Although many thought this was its role, the preventive approach did not prevent the war in the north.
The focus on WBW also came at a cost. WBW became a way of thinking and a pattern of behavior. Special operations are centrally managed at high levels. They exist within an almost perfect envelope of intelligence, air support and rescue capabilities. They always rely on the element of surprise, without which they are delayed or canceled. They give decision makers a sense of control and security.
Many commanders in the IDF testified that, in their opinion, these patterns affected the way the war in Gaza was conducted, at least in its first months. Too much centralized control, a slow pace of execution, and too limited freedom of action for the commanders on the ground.
The successes of the last few weeks point to another possible price.
The war in the north is, to a large extent, still managed under the same conceptual framework. Even after the assassination of Akil in the Dahaya district, Israel remains committed to the idea of the “threshold of escalation”.
The pager/walkie-talkie operations attributed to Israel stirred the world’s imagination and returned some of the luster that had been eroded from the IDF, and they no doubt hit the enemy hard. But as exciting as those successes were, the combination of covert capabilities in the Israeli concept of war must be seriously examined.
According to reports, the operation was launched at the moment it was due to fear of disclosure. It is likely that Israel was forced to escalate the war without gaining the operational benefits for which this capability was surely intended: throwing the enemy off balance as the IDF pushed into Lebanon.
However severe the damage to Hezbollah, it is likely to recover. Furthermore, Israel may have been forced into a strategic decision due to a tactical constraint: the fear of exposing the operation.
If this is the reality, then Hamas in Gaza — and Sinwar personally, who cut ties with the negotiation efforts for a hostage deal a few weeks ago — are the big beneficiaries.
For almost a year, Hamas has hoped for a strategic rescue through a flare-up of war in Lebanon. The IDF’s operational capability, a “red button” skillfully embedded in Hezbollah’s equipment, may have offered it new hope that this will come to pass.
This situation obliges us to think about the dependency of military capabilities on secret “red buttons.” That is not meant to diminish the vital role of secret intelligence in war. On the contrary: the closer integration of the Mossad in IDF operations, a trend to which the WBW contributed, is important and welcome. But a distinction must be made between the integration of the Mossad and its capabilities, if indeed that took place here, and the integration of covert operational capabilities in military moves.
Excellent intelligence obtained by the Mossad was also at the basis of Operation Moked at the start of the Six-Day War. But it was intelligence that enabled the air force’s preemptive attack on the Arab airbases.
The opening operation of the Six-Day War did not depend for its success on devices planted by the Mossad in the Egyptian planes or on pre-prepared sabotage of the Syrian airports.
Also, the one-time use of special capabilities deployed in enemy territory creates dramatic decision dilemmas. It was decision dilemmas combined with maintenance difficulties that caused “special measures” not to be activated on the eve of the Egyptian attack in 1973 and for the special systems of Unit 8200 to be unavailable on the eve of the attack on October 2023. In retrospect, a huge gap was discovered between the sense of security provided by these systems and their actual operational benefit.
The other series of questions concerns the way the IDF’s long focus on special operations has affected Israeli military thinking.
“We have a lot of capabilities. At every stage where we operate, we are already prepared two stages ahead,” the Chief of Staff was quoted as saying during his visit to the Northern Command after the pagers attack in Lebanon. This statement indicates that the IDF continues to think of the war as a chain of capability demonstrations and retaliation balances.
In the past, this was called “steps of escalation.”
A year into the war, the Chief of Staff is not quoted as briefing his subordinates in the Northern Command on the main goal of removing the Hezbollah threat in the North. Principles such as concentrating the effort and shortening the war are not mentioned.
Such ideas, called “theory of victory” in the professional literature, have a huge role to play not only as a war plan but also as a platform for a strategic coordination of expectations.
It is true that the Chief of Staff’s words were meant to be quoted in the open media. But precisely because of this, he could be expected to leverage the prospect of severe damage to Hezbollah or at least to convey the deterrent message that the IDF is facing a military decision.
Instead, the strategic message he sent is that the pager operation has not changed our strategic approach.
None of this is a coincidence.
The words of the Chief of Staff do not differ in essence from the famous “dynamic and evolving” approach that has characterized the contingency plans of the Southern Command in recent years.
Flexibility is an important tactical principle, and it can even be valuable in the management of a long-term strategy like the WBW. But flexibility is not a virtue for the conducting of war-fighting. At that level, clarity and concentration of effort are vital.
Clarity of purpose, not fuzziness, is what allows for tactical flexibility. The hidden assumption behind the “dynamic and evolving” approach is that operations are not conducted against the enemy as a military entity but as part of a strategic dialogue with its leadership. This is not a theory of victory.
The current Chief of Staff and his General Staff did not invent the WBW, the fight against terrorism, the deterrence operations or the steps of escalation. These appeared about 30 years ago and gradually became an almost intuitive way of thinking at our military and political level.
But the State of Israel has long faced terrorist armies, not terrorist organizations. A warlike way of thinking is required.
It is appropriate to congratulate and bless the IDF’s recent successes. It is also right to continue to support the IDF and its commanders in the conduct of the war.
But the war is also an opportunity for learning. The unfortunate reality is that even if we escalate to all-out war in Lebanon, chances are that it will end in some kind of agreement, not the complete removal of the military threat.
This means yet another war will break out in Lebanon within a few years. The current war is above all else a correction opportunity for Israeli strategy and the IDF’s theory of war.
A combatant force should strive to dismantle the enemy as a combatant system. It should be built for this end, while making strict assumptions regarding conditions of execution, the absence of the element of surprise, and non-optimal timing, because wars are not series of special operations. The forces should benefit from mutual support, such as air support for ground forces, but not be completely dependent on these envelopes.
The ground forces need to be prepared and built to conduct more independent ground operations in the near circle and be less dependent on a special operations envelope. The success of the operations in Gaza, for which tight and superior air-intelligence envelopes are a critical component, may obscure this need.
Israel must not allow itself to be fooled by success. The facts are that Israel chose not to destroy the enemy’s critical production infrastructure in Lebanon though it had done just that in Syria, even though the operational capability to do so was proven.
Like any serious military organization, the enemy will recover from the recent blows, simply because we are allowing him the time he needs to do so.
The IDF’s theory of war should be based on solid foundations that distinguish between the world of special operations and the world of war. Hezbollah is an army. Anti-terrorism methods will not do.
A year into the war, our learning of lessons and adaptation to the new strategic reality is still ahead of us.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. His book The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew) dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate and renew a decisive war approach. His next book, Renewal – The October 7th War and Israel’s Defense Strategy, is about to be published by Levin Publications. A version oft this article originally appeared at The BESA Center.
The post Israel Must Fight Hezbollah Like a State Army, Not Just a Terrorist Organization first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.