Is Hezbollah dedicated to destroying Israel or dedicated to portraying itself as dedicated to destroying Israel?
It's kind of amusing in a bureaucratic evolution sort of analysis:
Experts say that Hezbollah’s international network is expanding, but that the group isn’t eager for outright war with Israel or the United States. Instead, some analysts say, Hezbollah would rather rely on covert operations and terrorist activities.
All backed by donations and organized crime.
Has organizational self-preservation altered a group that once boasted it would destroy Israel into one that minimally attacks Israel to justify the continued existence and profits of the group. From the prophet to profit, eh?
What does that mean for Israel's military plans to defend itself from Hezbollah?
Israel knows where most of these hideouts are and plans to use ground, airmobile and amphibious attacks to go after the largest number of key Hezbollah facilities, especially leaders. The amphibious operations will be more extensive as Israel is buying two amphibious ships from the United States.
I guess no deep push to the Bekaa Valley as I long suspected is planned. I assumed Israel would need to uproot the organization. Yet Israel didn't exploit Hezbollah's bloody war inside Syria to maximize Israel's capacity to do that.
Still, the talk is of a ground campaign and not just an air campaign. Can Israel afford to refrain from a deep push?
The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group threatened Thursday to strike a gas rig Israel is setting up in the Mediterranean Sea and that Lebanon claims is in a disputed maritime area between the two countries.
That's a big threat, is it not? One that requires a major military effort to defeat, right?
Or is Israel capable of killing the leaders--who benefit from the profits of their anti-Israel brand--without destroying the neutered organization? And thus deterring those leaders from ordering more than a symbolic attack on Israel? Maybe Israel thinks it has a defensive strategy that allows them to refrain from ground operations.
I don't know what is going on. I'm trying to reconcile the relative quiet of Hezbollah since the 2006 war and Israel's refusal to go after Hezbollah directly despite the massive rocket arsenal Hezbollah has massed in southern Lebanon. If something makes sense it must be a possible explanation.
Is Hezbollah's rocket posture in southern Lebanon just a giant brand advertising campaign to sustain the organization? That benefits Hezbollah's leadership. And Israel, I suppose, which won't have their defensive systems seriously tested. As long as new management eager to get back to basics doesn't take over. Perhaps with new Iranian weapons.
As it seems now, only long-suffering Lebanon continues to suffer from Hezbollah's control of southern Lebanon and its stranglehold in national politics.
NOTE: My latest war coverage is here. Weekend data dump also has Ukraine-related entries.
