Transcript: Webinar – The Fog of Ceasefire: Escalation and the Uncertainty Ahead
Click here to watch the webinar.
PANELISTS
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former Head, Israel’s National Security Council
The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Blaise Misztal:
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to JINSA’s latest webinar update on everything going on in the Middle East. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy. I apologize for the delay due to technical difficulties. I’m delighted to be joined by General Yaakov Amidror, a distinguished fellow at JINSA and former National Security Advisor to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu. We were hoping to also be joined by General [Yaacov] Ayish; however, he’s unable to make it due to other commitments. So, General Amidror, it’ll just be you and me this afternoon.
I wanted to start with Lebanon and get an update from you on what exactly the situation is, because I think it looks different whether in Washington, in Jerusalem, or in Beirut. Here in Washington, there was a ceasefire, yet another ceasefire was announced yesterday. Hezbollah seemed to reject it. So, what is your understanding from Israel of what the current situation in Lebanon is?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Just to make it clear that it is not a ceasefire. We lost a captain from the Armored Brigade a few hours ago to an anti-tank missile and he was killed. We are fighting in South Lebanon. We crossed the Mitani in the northeast part of the river in the area before the castle, and we are now controlling the area, which is North of the Litani in the center of this area is Nabatieh, the biggest city in South Lebanon.
If an order is given, we can go move down from this area with the Litani in our left wing and it depends on how far and how deep the decision will go now. The meaning of this movement is that we are taking control of a big area, which is North of the Litani and the aim of such a step will be to neutralize the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles, rockets, and drones from the area which is North of the Litani into Israel and against the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] still fighting South of the Litani on in the western side of the area. We are not doing it in the classical military way because of the restrictions that the Americans asked us to take upon ourselves.
I think it was a big mistake for the United States of America to connect the Iran issue with the Lebanon issue and to let Hezbollah get out of the situation, because the Americans think that might hurt their ability to negotiate with the Iranians. I think it’s a big mistake, I think Lebanon is an issue for itself and by giving the Iranians the ability to influence the situation in Lebanon; in a way the Americans in these negotiations are legitimizing the influence of Iran in Lebanon. Despite the fact that in the negotiations between us and the Lebanese in Washington, it is clearly the main obstacle for any agreement for any peace in Lebanon or for any future which might bring some life to this miserable people in Lebanon is if Iran will be kicked out of Lebanon and Hezbollah will be dismantled.
Without these two actions, there is no way that Lebanon will succeed to achieve any agreement with Israel that someone will be ready to risk his money and to invest in Lebanon, and so forth. The prerequisite for any arrangement which will bring Lebanon some help in the future of this devastating war is to get rid of the Iranians, they should be outside Lebanon. By the way, the Lebanese didn’t ask the Iranian ambassador to leave—they called him persona non grata and they asked him to leave Lebanon, yet he’s still in the embassy. So, to get rid of the Iranians and to dismantle Hezbollah, those actions cannot be taken if during the negotiations the Americans connect as they did this time between the movement moving on the negotiations with the Iranians and the situation in Lebanon. It’s a huge strategic mistake to connect between the two, I know the Iranians want to be connected, it’s their interest, they want to legitimize their influence in Lebanon, but I think that here the Americans had a fantastic opportunity to say, ‘Guys two different issues: one we are negotiating with the Lebanese government in Washington.’ And the second one is Iran, ‘We are negotiating with the Iranians through mediators.’ I think that this connection should be stopped and should not exist anymore in the future.
Blaise Misztal:
Is the current Israeli military operation in Lebanon a response to Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire, or is it sort of a proactive operation to achieve Israeli strategic objectives?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
First of all, the whole operation is in the action to the war, which was initiated by Hezbollah on February 28th, when Israel and America attacked Iran. We didn’t touch Hezbollah, Hezbollah decided to help the Iranians by beginning to bomb Israel. So, the whole war in Lebanon was initiated by Hezbollah. Since then, you know, it’s a ping pong; you never know what came first.
What we try to do is to put Hezbollah to the North and they will not have the ability to launch missile rockets. At the beginning, it was anti-tank missiles, and later even to the North because of the drone threat which is coming from the North part of the Litani. It’s a war in which we are restricting ourselves because of the interest of the United States of America of regarding Iran, but we are pushing Hezbollah to the North
Blaise Misztal:
You said that it’s not a regular military operation because of restrictions that the United States has asked for. Can you give us more details about what those restrictions are and what that means for the IDF operation?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Yes, for example, the command-and-control system of Hezbollah, the headquarters, the decision makers are sitting in Beirut, and the Americans ask us specifically not to act in Beirut, so we don’t. The Americans don’t want it to be a full wage war that the old forces that we have in Lebanon or in the northern part of Israel will go into Lebanon, and we take control of the area South of Beirut. It can be done. It is not. We are not doing it. We are moving very slowly, because we do not want to put the Americans in the corner by doing something which is very big and very well understood as a big operation.
It is very moderate, very slow, and because of that, the movements are very short and very slow. As you know, it is very problematic for our forces on the ground to move slowly and to restrict themselves and to have some areas which are crucial to the ability of the other side to implement these plans that we will not touch because the Americans asked us not to do it.
Blaise Misztal:
You said that the operational objective is to prevent Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets and drones. How far North does Israel have to go to achieve that all the way to the Dahieh, all the way to Beqaa? How far?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
No, not all the way to Dahieh, but South of Beirut somewhere. The exact point is the military technical issue South of the hourly area, which will be denied from Hezbollah, the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets will be very limited. They can use very long-range missiles and rockets to launch them from the car. Most of the numbers that they still have are very minimal.
Here, I think it is a place to make a remark about the situation of Hezbollah. Hezbollah, we succeeded in the war before the end of 2024 to destroy between two-thirds to three-fourths of the capabilities of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets. It is about reducing the number of missiles that they have, and the number of launches that they have. People are used to saying, but with the time moving on, Hezbollah will rearm itself, and I think that it is people who don’t understand how significant the change on the ground since has been since the end of 2024.
The land bridge, which was probably the most strategic achievement of Iran to build a land bridge from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and into the Mediterranean Beirut. This bridge does not exist. Syria was taken out of the region without the cornerstone of Syria in the bridge. The bridge does not exist. The Iranians do not have a way to rearm Hezbollah, they can smuggle through Syria here and there, something, but not in the numbers that had been before the part of the efforts before the war.
Syria itself, which was the backyard of Hezbollah, provided Hezbollah with a weapons system which was the hub for transferring weapon systems that came from Russia and from Iran into the hands of Hezbollah. All of that system does not exist, of course. The Iranians can bring money to Lebanon, and if the Americans, based on the agreement, will lift the sanctions, more money will come to Lebanon and more money will go to Hezbollah. Hezbollah will add more resources to recruit more members to Hezbollah, but that cannot bring with the money and does not bring the weapon system, which is supposed to come somehow. In the past, it was clear coming from Iran and Syria. There is a direct connection between Iran and Lebanon. There is Syria which is the backyard of Lebanon and supplying Hezbollah. It does not exist anymore. It’s a totally new situation; Hezbollah was squeezed between Israel and Syria. The new Syrian regime hates Hezbollah more than us, ready to kill more Hezbollah members and affiliated families, and so and so forth, more than us. We are restrictionists, a democratic country. They aren’t, and these people know that the main force which butchered them during the war inside Syria was Hezbollah. The number of casualties on the Sunni side is not known; it’s somewhere between a half and one million. More than five million had to leave their places and became refugees inside Syria and outside Syria, thanks to the efforts of Hezbollah and Iraq. With help from the Russians, which have been the air force of those boots on the ground for Hezbollah and the Iranians.
So, Hezbollah today, is between Israel and Syria and cannot rearm itself. It’s a legend. Yes, here and there, probably they do succeed in smuggling something from Syria into Lebanon, and maybe somewhere, some place they are making some effort. What is newly made and this is the new threat that Israel is facing, is drones. Not in big numbers but smart drones and they use the fact that the IDF is moving inside Lebanon, and mainly IDF facilities or forces have hit communities on the other side of the border inside Israel, but this is the minority. We are making huge efforts to produce good answers to this threat. Within three months, you will see that we have some new ideas, which will be implemented on the ground. Will it be a 100 percent solution? Probably not. But it will reduce the number of casualties, the number of Israelis that will be heard by the drones, and you know it’s a kind of race between the defender and the attacker, and we are learning, we made a mistake and we didn’t prepare. Right now, we are making huge efforts.
Blaise Misztal:
To play devil’s advocate, General Amidror, if Hezbollah has been cut off from the Iranian weapons supply, as you just said, they can’t rearm. Why is an operation of this size going this far needed now when the IDF has gone further into Lebanon than it did during Operation Northern Arrows in 2024, there was a year of a ceasefire where Israel seem to believe that whatever degradation of Hezbollah was accomplished during Northern Arrows was sufficient, didn’t require further military action at the time. So, why is this big operation needed now?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I don’t think that someone in Israel thought this was sufficient. I remember meeting with one of the commanders of the IDF, in which we exchanged our views. It was almost a year and a half ago, immediately after the ceasefire, before the first attack on the Iranians, and it was clear in this conversation that we will have to make chapter two in Lebanon because yes, we succeeded to derogate the capabilities of Hezbollah, but Hezbollah was stronger than Hamas before the war. They had around 60,000-200,000 missiles and rockets, and even if we succeeded in destroying two thirds of them, of that meaning it is to understand between 20,000 to 30,000 rockets and missiles that remain in their hands. So, it was understood in Israel that chapter two will be needed. We did not take into account the situation in which the Americans are making such a big mistake in connecting the negotiations with the Iranians with the situation on the ground in Lebanon.
We try to help as much as possible to resume the negotiations in Washington, because we think it’s very important to bring the Lebanese to make the commitment, and if Hezbollah will be dismantled by the Lebanese, it’s the best solution. I’m very pessimistic about will and capability, but if that is achieved, it is a fantastic situation, but if not, it should be done by force.
Blaise Misztal:
You said that peace will not come to Lebanon until Iran is kicked out and Hezbollah is disarmed. You just sounded pessimistic about the Lebanese being able to do it themselves, is that something that Israel can accomplish by itself militarily? Is that the ultimate objective of this operation?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
The answer is no. We understand our limitations. It’s not Gaza. In Gaza, we can say we will not finish till Hamas will be obliterated totally. People will remain there, but the organization will not exist, not a military organization at least. We cannot say the same about Hezbollah. We are not going to launch a ground operation in Lebanon, in Beirut, or in Beqaa and many parts of Hezbollah are focusing on Beirut and in Beqaa.
What we can make and should make is to make the organization weak enough that we can act in Lebanon as we did since 2012 in Syria. Every time that we had intelligence, we bombed the facility which we learned from the intelligence about and by that we stopped the Iranians from building Hezbollah to zero under their direct control. That was the idea of the Iranians to build another organization under their direct control in Syria. So, the ring of fire around Israel will be something that Israel will deal with. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian organization in Syria, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad in the South. Since 2012, we have been very active in Syria. We succeeded in destroying any attempt that the Iranians made to build a facility, a false capability inside Syria.
I think that we should be in the same situation regarding the future of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Whenever we will have an intelligence about the factory of Hezbollah, weapon systems of Hezbollah, training of Hezbollah, whatever we will feel enough confidence and will not be deterred by the capabilities that Hezbollah has. We have to destroy and to kill them, and so on.
So, for that, we have to make Hezbollah much weaker, and that can be done by the IDF. In some areas, we will take control on the ground, in some areas it will be by the air force, in some areas it will be by special forces, but at the end of the day we should end the war with a clear situation in which whenever there is a need the IDF can and will act inside Lebanon. Of course, the Lebanese government will do what they promise to, and they will disarm Hezbollah, and we will have an agreement with Lebanon that will not be needed. But assuming the pessimistic option that the Lebanese army is not doing what is supposed to do and the Lebanese government cannot control Lebanon, Israel should be in a position to prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself.
Blaise Misztal:
Will creating that condition require maintaining Israeli troops inside of Lebanon, and if so, in what part?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
The answer is yes, and probably it will be from the Litani’s south.
Blaise Misztal:
I think I know the answer to this question, but let me ask, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has suggested the creation of a new international force to replace UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon] to secure Lebanon and I guess disarm Hezbollah. Would that be a suitable arrangement for Israel?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I hope to hear better jokes from a very important guy like the Secretary of the United Nations. UNIFIL did not contribute anything to the security of Lebanon or to the security of Israel. It was an organization which was used by Hezbollah to hide behind it. It’s a huge mistake to have another organization. We should get rid of this organization.
You know, I was very young soldier in 1967 Six-Day War, I was in the Paratrooper Brigade which was responsible to take the higher area of the Gaza Strip, Ali Muntar, and when we moved into Gaza we got an order to stop to cease fire because the United Nations were evacuating their forces from the Gaza Strip. So an Indian force going with rifles down to the land to show that they are not going to use it, they marched up very nicely, by the way, like a parade, but it was the first example in my long history in the Middle East wars that I saw how the United Nations forces are irrelevant to the situation when they are really needed.
Blaise Misztal:
You told us about some of the ways that the IDF is restraining itself at American request in the way it’s conducting this operation, but what is your sense of the general United States position in regards to IDF operations in Lebanon specifically, given that we heard reports about the testy phone call that happened this week between President [Donald] Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, where President Trump seemed to be not particularly happy about Israel’s role in Lebanon.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I can understand the American position, but I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it is a wise position, but I can understand. The Americans try now to achieve an agreement in which those threats will be open, and then the negotiation will be focused on the nuclear issue in Iran. That’s what the Americans are saying, and I believe that this is what they want. The Iranians can use and probably will use the war in Lebanon as an excuse to not sign the agreement. Saying okay, we have an interest, you have an interest in the war, we have an interest in Lebanon. What about our interests? I think that the answer of the Americans should be, it’s not connected. The war in Lebanon will continue, Israelis will do what they think they have to do to secure their security. It was initiated by Hezbollah and Hezbollah will pay the price. You don’t have any interest in Lebanon. It’s a sovereign state with the government, we are negotiating with the government, the Israelis are negotiating with the Lebanese government. Don’t interfere and don’t put yourself in the neck of the Lebanese, what you are doing with Hezbollah.
The Americans did not say the Americans allowed the situation to move towards a kind of a connection between the two fronts and of course, the Iranians are using it, and when the Iranians are using it, the pressure is on the Americans, which want a negotiation and an agreement.
So, I can understand the Americans’ position, I don’t agree with it, I think it’s a bad position. Bad for America, bad for Lebanon, and bad for the Middle East, because it legitimized the involvement of Iran in Lebanon, which I think is a big mistake. So, I can understand the Americans. I don’t agree and I think that the Prime Minister had to make it clear that it is in the interest of Israel. We are losing soldiers almost every day, we have at least one soldier or officer killed in Lebanon. It is our interest to move on, not to win a position in which they can identify us and kill us, because we are not moving.
Blaise Misztal:
Well, General, I have a couple more questions for you, but I also want to open up to the audience, so if you have any questions you want to pose to General Amidror, please feel free to submit them using the Q & A function in Zoom, and I’ll read them out. General Amidror, I guess in light of what you just said, under the Biden administration, we used to talk about the U.S. bear hug of Israel, which was both supportive and constraining at the same time. Is there a danger of the relationship with the Trump administration developing into a similar bear hug?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I don’t think. I think that with violence, will the strategy yield a technical issue? The Americans need quietness when they’re negotiating with the Iranians, and they believe that what they are negotiating is about the exporting of all the nuclear materials from Iran, something which is one of the most important interests of the State of Israel. So, they can think that it is wise to say to the Israelis, don’t put yourself in a situation because of you, we will not have an agreement with the Iranians, when at the end of the agreement we can take out all the nuclear materials. I think that this is the big difference between the law of the Biden administration and the law of the Trump administration. I think that this is also a big mistake. Americans should not give the Iranians the benefit of connecting with Lebanon anymore.
Blaise Misztal:
How would you interpret what we saw from Iran on Monday and Tuesday at the launching of 35 missiles and drones and claiming that they had walked away from negotiations. How should we understand what they’re trying to accomplish with that?
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I have been in negotiations with the Iranians since the 90s. I think that I had a very important role in bringing the Iranians to the negotiations. When everyone told me about their nuclear project and that they were not going to negotiate, I think we had a lot of help from America. America made their main efforts to bring them to the table. We helped from the outside with our intelligence and ideas, and so on, and so forth. But in the end, it was done by the Americans. I was part of the Israeli Team, coordinated the negotiations with the Americans when they negotiated with the Iranians, and I was there when the Americans decided to lie to us and not tell us that they are negotiating directly with Iranians and that they are giving up and changing the policy for dismantling to spawn and monitor.
So, I have a lot of experience. I didn’t by myself make the negotiations, but I was there when the Americans and others, such as when the P5 +1 negotiated with the Iranians. I think that the Iranians try to do something and apparently, they are succeeding. First of all, they want to gain time. The more time they are gaining, they will be better prepared for the next round, if it comes. They are taking out all the missiles and the launches that have been in tunnels which we succeeded to destroy access to, so they will have much more. They are reorganizing themselves; they learn many lessons and they are using that to enhance their capability, so they need time to be better prepared.
Second, they understand that the closer we get to the midterm elections, the more the chances that the President resumes the war go down. By achieving and by getting time to reorganize themselves and postpone the war to maybe to the point in which it will not be resumed forever. I think that they are playing very well, and they understand that America is working in agreement, and they are not ready to risk the negotiations, so they can be freer to act against allies of the United States of America. They understand there’s some red lines that should not be crossed, for example, they didn’t attack Israel. But you know, those little countries or big countries which are much weaker than Israel, they can threaten Americans indirectly.
In a way, if you want to understand, it is the North-South Korea situation. Who was all the time against forming North Korea, South Korea. Why? They understood because the North Korean gave them the opportunity to understand that if the Americans are bombing the nuclear facilities, they will destroy Seoul and they didn’t want to take the risk. What the Iranians are doing is the same. They are telling the Americans, and they are telling the neighbors to tell the Americans, not to resume the war because we will suffer. We, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and so on. So, in a way the Iranians tried to build a Korean situation, and you know what, they didn’t fail in a way they succeeded to do it.
Blaise Misztal:
If you want to read JINSA’s take on the current situation with Iran, I recommend to you Mike Makovsky and my recent insight that should be in your inboxes today or on the JINSA website, arguing that Trump is at risk of losing the war on Iran and needs to act forcefully to reverse that. But General Amidror, let me turn now to a question from JINSA’s John Hannah, who asks, ‘Would you support a well-resourced and dedicated program under CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] to train, equip, and advise the best forces of the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] for the specific mission of confronting Hezbollah? Could it succeed?’
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
I don’t know if it succeeds or not, but if someone in Lebanon says guys do that and we will do the job, I think that we should take the risk.
Blaise Misztal:
All right. Well, thank you very much for your time this evening General Amidror, thank you to everyone who tuned in. Please check out jinsa.org for all of our latest analysis, and with that, General, have a good night, and wishing everyone else a good afternoon. Thank you.
IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:
Thank you very much.