Israel’s true opposition leader Benny Gantz (he’s expected to come in first or second in the next election) says the time has come to deal decisively with the Hezbollah threat emanating from Lebanon.
In the absence of a ceasefire/hostage agreement in Gaza, and Gantz emphasized that the fault lies entirely with Hamas, he said Israel “must go to war in the north.”
Hezbollah claims it is only attacking Israel’s northern border regions in response to the continued Israeli “aggression” against Gaza, and that once the Gaza war end so will the rocket fire that has driven some 80,000 Israelis from their homes in the Upper Galilee.
But the war in Gaza isn’t going to end anytime soon. Most Israelis know this, and know that it can’t end until Hamas is no longer capable of doing what it did on October 7 of last year. At the same time, it is unacceptable that Israel suffer such a devastating ongoing assault from a neighboring state as it tries to deal with the Gaza terrorist threat.
Gantz told the Middle East-America Dialogue Summit (MEAD) in Washington, DC that he’s in favor of a “painful” compromise to bring the hostages home. But he also seemed to acknowledge what’s becoming abundantly clear–that Hamas isn’t going to make a deal unless its under terms Israel simply can’t accept.
That being the case, he stressed that “time for the north has come. …we must go to war in the north and ensure that we can return the residents to their homes.”
The way to do that is by going on the offensive.
“We can reach this goal, even if it requires damage to Lebanon itself,” said Gantz. “We must be proactive against any threat to our borders, particularly the threat of infiltration. We must not continue with the same security policies that existed before October 7.”
War is unavoidable
Gantz is a politician with hopes of becoming prime minister, so he addresses the matter in a diplomatic manner.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is not a politician, and so had the luxury of being more direct in a recent interview with Arutz 7.
Gen. Hacohen cautioned that even if a Gaza deal is reached that explicitly includes a ceasefire in the north, and even the redeployment of Hezbollah north of the Litani River in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, that still won’t negate the need for war.
On October 7, 2023, Israelis finally had their eyes opened to what the jihadists truly want, and it’s not peace. Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas exist for the sole purpose of destroying infidels and imposing Islamic rule. And they won’t ever stop until obstacles like Israel are removed.
“The residents of the north won’t return home,” said Hacohen. “They’ll say that even if Hezbollah is redeployed, its capabilities are not diminished, and it can return to the border within 20 minutes whenever it wants.”
War is unavoidable, the former general insisted. And the longer Israel waits, the more difficult and costly it will be.
The head of the snake
Both Gantz and Hacohen reiterated that the conflict in Gaza and in the north are not an isolated conflicts, but part of a much larger Iranian-directed scheme to weaken and ultimately destroy Israel, and to achieve regional hegemony.
“If we want to achieve a real victory, it’s not just about resolving the issue with Hamas and bringing back the hostages, but about forming a regional alliance against the Iranian axis that has built terror armies around us,” Gantz explained. “Iran is involved in almost every conflict, from supplying UAVs to Russia for the war in Ukraine to supporting terrorism in Sudan and Algeria. We can only imagine what will happen if they have a nuclear umbrella.”
Iran, Gantz emphasized, “is a global and regional challenge, and is certainly not just a problem for Israel.”
See related: A Christian solution for peace in Gaza
Hacohen intimated that it is time for Israelis to wake up and understand that this is a generational war. The ayatollahs have set 2040 as the date for Israel’s demise, and “they are not about to abandon that quest.”
