In the months since October 7 many have asked how this war might end. Many have pointed to the Israeli government’s stated objectives of getting back the hostages that Hamas kidnapped and also destroying Hamas in its entirety. Some have enjoyed pointing out that these two aims seem to be mutually contradictory.
I have consistently had a different answer: the war will be over when Israel has reasserted its intelligence and military deterrence capabilities against its enemies. That is what Israel is now doing.
There is little purpose in destroying Hamas in Gaza if the far better armed and trained armies of Hezbollah continue to operate from southern Lebanon. This war started not just with the unparalleled savagery of Hamas’s attacks but because Israel’s defence and deterrence capabilities failed. Many Israeli civilians – and not just those who suffered most in the area of the Gaza border – were stunned that such an attack could take place. After years of hearing about the unprecedented intelligence and security advantage Israel has against its enemies, the Israeli public (and those who wish them harm) believed it.
Popular films and television shows bolstered this image. The Israeli-made show Fauda, for instance, shows plenty of nuance and complexity. But the Israelis always win out in the end; the “eyes in the sky” and other technology proved reassuring for viewers.
Quite how the security system was able to be broken down on October 7 will be a matter for the commission of inquiry once the war is over. What matters as much as that is for Israel to be able to reassert the deterrent capabilities it was believed to have had. It is vital for the Israeli public and for the stability of the wider region. Recent weeks have been a good start.
From the moment the October attacks happened many had the vision of the Munich Olympics massacre in their heads, and its aftermath. That was when the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was tasked with hunting down and killing the ringleaders of the massacre – wherever they were.
The operation (popularised by Steven Spielberg’s film Munich) was not just successful in killing the masterminds of that plot. It was successful in deterring others from committing a repeat.
In the past weeks Israel has adopted this strategy with stunning success. In the middle of July the Israelis carried out a strike in Gaza which they have now confirmed took out Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif – the terrorists’ number two. Then at the weekend Iran’s proxy army in south Lebanon – Hezbollah – fired a missile into a playground in northern Israel that killed 12 children from the Druze community as they were playing football. Israel’s response came swiftly.
Israel launched a precision airstrike into the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The strike killed Fuad Shukr, one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders. He was also wanted by the authorities in the US for his involvement in the killing of 241 US military personnel in the Marine barracks bombing that the terrorists carried out in 1983. The short timer of Israeli justice ended up helping the long-arm of American justice.
Then just 10 hours later there was the explosion in Tehran which took out the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. He was in Tehran to participate in the swearing-in of the new Iranian president, a man whose predecessor fell out of the sky in a helicopter some weeks ago. Although the BBC have been careful to refer to Haniyeh as “moderate and pragmatic”, he was no such thing. He was one of the most senior figures in a brutal terrorist group which has no meaningful distinction between its “military” and “political” wings. After October 7 it was vital that he was targeted.
Now it has emerged that his killing was not the result of a targeted airstrike but came from a bomb placed months ago in the apartment in the Iranian government compound that he was being hosted in. The Israelis have not taken responsibility for the hit in Tehran. But it re-establishes Israel’s deterrence capabilities.
Every one of the troubles affecting Israel at present originate in Iran. It is the Revolutionary Islamic government there that has made the eradication of Israel a priority. It is Iran that is ensuring that Israel is fighting a war on – effectively – seven fronts. Not just against Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Iran but against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen among many others.
After the October 7 attacks – again funded and backed by Iran – the regime in Tehran looked on with satisfaction as the world turned not on Hamas but on Israel. The regime delighted in the useful idiots and others in the West turning against Israel rather than on the terrorists of Hamas. The Supreme Leader – Ayatollah Khamenei – even expressed his public gratitude and support for students at American universities who were bringing their institutions to a halt as a protest against Israel’s right to defend itself.
How much happier they must have been in recent months as the preposterous nobodies at the so-called International Criminal Court declared that they were seeking arrest warrants for the democratically elected prime minister of Israel – Benjamin Netanyahu – and his defence minister. Oh and also for two of the leaders of Hamas. Since the ICC has no evidence of war crimes committed by the Israelis it has announced the warrants ahead of any investigation. A novel concept: to announce an arrest and then start looking for a crime. Though it is hardly surprising given the illegitimate nature of the court and the wild politicisation that has predictably occurred in it.
So where will the rest of Israel’s allies be now?
In the US Kamala Harris is busily trying to boast to her base that she is being “tough” on the Israelis. There is little evidence that she intends to be even equally “tough” on Iran. And in the UK our new government has not only acceded to the preposterous ICC (and good luck David Lammy when your time for arrest comes), it has also repeatedly criticised the Israeli government.
It is the wrong time to do either. For the sake of peace in the Middle East it is necessary for Iran’s terrorist chiefs to be hunted down. And if the British government wanted to do something meaningful for once, perhaps instead of grandstanding it could finally round up the regime operatives here in Britain? I wonder if they will.
The post Israel has shown it can still hit back – and now the world can sleep safer appeared first on The Telegraph.
