Just a few months, I wrote that I don't think it's right to enter into a full-scale war in Lebanon, and that it would be better to delay it for a few years. But a large part of good statesmanship is knowing how to spot opportunities, and the State of Israel has created a rare opportunity to fundamentally change the reality on the ground in the last two weeks.
True, it's not like there isn't any Hezbollah left to fight or that entering into Lebanon will be a walk in the park. It will be costly. But in the last few weeks, Hezbollah has suffered hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded, its senior command has ceased to exist, its media network has collapsed, it has lost significant amounts of weapons, and its morale is at a low point.
In addition, it turns out that it hasn't really succeeded in carrying out one of its main threats: paralyzing Israel with massive rocket salvos on ports, power stations, and major population centers in the Haifa and Dan Bloc areas. Most of what Hezbollah has succeeded in doing is firing short-range rockets on the Galilee - but this is precisely the sort of threat which a ground invasion of Lebanon can almost entirely remove.
Therefore, what I propose to do is evacuate the Lebanese population south of the Litani (perhaps aside from Christian villages hostile to Hezbollah), occupy southern Lebanon, establish a defensive line along the Litani, and announce that Israel will only withdraw from the territory in exchange for full peace with Lebanon.
Who knows, maybe some Lebanese Sadat with Saudi/American/French backing will arise after Hezbollah is shattered. Or maybe not.
Either way, both options are far preferable than passive defense along the border and letting Hezbollah rebuild itself.
Elad Nahshon is a PhD student at Bar Ilan University, studying the political and social history of Zionism and the State of Israel.
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