August 31, 2024
Nasser Kandil
Confirmations that Hezbollah’s drones had reached their designated targets in Tel Aviv’s northern suburb and struck Unit 8200 crowd the Israeli newspaper pages, rebutting the preemptive strike narrative the entity circulated, whether because it failed to prevent the response before it occurred, or due to the exaggerations in the narrative which turned out to be media propaganda about preventing Hezbollah’s intended attack using thousands of missiles targeting residential complexes with the aim of destroying them, a methodology not in the least resembling Hezbollah’s. Such thought was never in
Al Mukawama’s realm of thinking in the past and/or currently.
Al Mukawma was clear about the methodology of winning by points and matching the response to the assault, aside from the fact, in the first place, that the use of such a number of missiles is beyond belief.
The Israeli talk renouncing escalation and war, and similarly that the war with Hezbollah is deferred to the distant future, is nothing but an acknowledgement of retracting threats of war on Lebanon despite the presence of the unprecedented American military amassment in the area, and the inability to provide real help in a confrontation with Hezbollah, as declared by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, because of the geographic element. Words about pushing Hezbollah back behind the Litani River, taking Lebanon back to the Stone Age, and giving a window of 2 weeks for a diplomatic solution after which the army will act, have all disappeared. This, at a minimum, implies strategic disorientation or strategic void, and in all cases, strategic impotence.
In parallel, the entity is living a period of suspense and anxiety about what could happen from the fronts of Yemen and Iran, with the ceiling which American intervention can provide is mitigation of damages. It is clear that the entity’s aggression on Lebanon’s front was geared to contain Hezbollah’s responses and to claim that it had caused their failure in order to avoid a military contest, the challenges of which it cannot keep pace with. Likewise America, but even more, looking to the end the round of confrontation, given that the operations against the American forces in Syria and Iraq have not stopped, and Washington has no military answer for facing them. While the entity has no military answer to the dilemma of its operations in Gaza, despite those who see America and the entity powerful and find difficult acknowledging this reality, insisting on placing the battles in the West Bank within the context of offensive action, it remains that this operation (Israeli claimed preemptive strike) is the paramount expression of strategic impotence, failure, and void.
It can be ascertained, even at this early stage, that the invasion and its attempt to reach a decisive conclusion in the West Bank is bound for failure, will not have the opportunity of lasting for a long time, nor will the mode applied in Gaza be applied, because the entity’s heart will stop beating and the entity will enter a state of clinical death, given that the West Bank is the strategic security for the entity and settlement. The ceiling the entity could reach is an open war between the settlers and the residents of Palestinian towns and refugee camps, and in parallel an open war between the occupation’s army and Al Mukawama, with suicide missions waiting behind the door.
Washington and Tel Aviv have no answers for the big questions and dilemmas, such as how can military feats against Al Mukawama in Gaza and the return of the prisoners be accomplished, and how can deterrence against Lebanon be reinforced and the return of the displaced be achieved, and how can American deterrence in the Red Sea be regained along with opening the way for the prohibited vessels to sail across. Three bitter choices present themselves, the first being going to a comprehensive war which ends in a decisive and sweeping victory for one side, with all the existential considerations in the entity’s calculations and the real danger for the war to become the prophesied third destruction, and the American real and serious concern about the futile engagement in the biggest, most difficult, and complex war of the century, and a declaration in advance of her willingness to lose in the competition with Russia and China. The second option is the acceptance of an open war of attrition in which the entity and its deterrence capability collapses, with Al Mukawama wining by points in accordance with her plans, and Washington paying the price of the entity’s persistent decline, and in the end going for a settlement costlier than what it is today, or to a comprehensive war with a constitution weaker than it is today, and certainly weaker than it was 11 months ago. As for the third option, it is to agree now to a negotiated deal, with now implying perhaps before or after the Yemeni and Iranian responses, and before or after testing the ceiling of what could be achieved in terms of future security for the entity through the West Bank war, with the intelligent answer being before, and the foolish answer in both cases being after. If the third option is what is being contemplated, the likelihood that it will come after is great, and explains Netanyahu’s bringing to the forefront the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor.
The strategic void, strategic failure, and strategic impotence direct the strategic apprehensiveness inward, which is what the West Bank challenge is, and allow the smallest and least significant tactical details to dominate the scene, hence the Philadelphi Corridor. So, instead of having the Knesset voting on the decision of war on Lebanon and opening schools on the 1st of September, taking advantage of the destruction of Hezbollah’s missile capability according to the tale of the preemptive strike, Netanyahu had the Knesset voting on the Philadelphi Corridor.
