Israel’s Principles

There used to be two immutable and well-understood principles of Israel’s defense. The first principle was “small country; short war.” Israel could not be caught in a war of attrition against infinitely larger and less politically sensitive countries. The corollary – and second principle – was “take the war to the other guy.” Israel is too small to expect to fight inside its own borders and the first job of the IDF is to protect the homeland. These principles deterred Israel’s Arab enemies.

There used to be two immutable and well-understood principles of Israel’s defense. The first principle was “small country; short war.” Israel could not be caught in a war of attrition against infinitely larger and less politically sensitive countries. The corollary – and second principle – was “take the war to the other guy.” Israel is too small to expect to fight inside its own borders and the first job of the IDF is to protect the homeland. These principles deterred Israel’s Arab enemies. There was some certainty that if they threatened Israel in an unacceptable way, they would be hit hard and hit in their own country. Yes, periodically Israel had to fight, but the very willingness of Israel to defend its people increased the deterrence.

Hamas and Hezbollah now seem to have found the key to undermining Israel’s deterrence, however. Israel’s defensive principles have been inverted and Israel finds itself fighting a war of attrition inside its own borders.

For Hamas, the key is to keep the rocket attacks below an understood threshold and Israel’s response will be tolerable, precise and produce minimal collateral (Palestinian) damage. The Hamas pattern is to fire one, two or three rockets at Sderot. Wait a few days and do it again. Injure two, three, four Israelis. Kill one or two, but not more than that – this week. Increase the range and accuracy of the rockets incrementally. Hit Ashkelon, but just once. Then wait. Hit a shopping center, but if no one is killed, the Israeli response is unlikely to threaten Hamas rule. If Israel does retaliate, the world will probably be more annoyed by the “disproportionate response” than the original rocket attack.

For Hezbollah, it was to build the rocket force and underground command and control system slowly and quietly. The Second Lebanon War surprised Nasrallah because he didn’t expect to be hit hard in his own space. Israel’s deterrent was actually improved for a while. However, the subsequent failure of UNIFIL and the Lebanese government to use the breathing space provided by Israel has allowed Hezbollah to return to the south and rebuild its rocket arsenal. Who is likely to be deterred now?

JINSA members were privileged recently to hear from two Israeli officials – one active duty military officer and one retired officer who is now a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Both have years of outstanding service to the IDF and to Israel. They made two points: First, one day, Israel will have to enter the Gaza Strip with large ground forces to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas and its Iranian sponsors. (“Iran in Gaza is unacceptable.”) Second, the threat from Gaza to Israel has not, in their view, reached the tipping point. (“The Passover Massacre pushed us to enter Jenin and clean it out.”)

It is hard to advocate large-scale military action against Hamas (or Hezbollah). The price will be high. But if Israel is waiting until a “Passover Massacre”-type terrorist attack and plans then to do what it knows it has to do, why wait? To wait is to give Hamas more time to import Iranian weapons, train its forces and build defenses – allowing the building a greater deterrent to IDF action out of fear of greater IDF losses completes the inversion of the defensive principles that have served Israel to well until now.