If another war breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, it could “turn Lebanon into a car park,” and take down wholesale targets in Tel Aviv, says longtime journalist and author, the Lebanon expert Nicholas Blanford. He argues that one of the only hopes for avoiding war is that each side is fully aware that a new round could mean mutually assured destruction, or at least severe devastation. Yet it might only take some damned foolish thing in the desert to spark that war.
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“Israel at 70 may be a fortress, but it’s still not a home. The solution to the great complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be summed up this way: if the Palestinians don’t have a home then Israelis won’t have a home either.”
–David Grossman, Israeli Memorial Day, 2018, as reported by Haaretz
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Listening to this interview, I was struck by how, though out human history, peace, such as it may be, is a consequence of total victory, although not necessarily for the small remnants of that which loses. But total victory, even in the birthing Independence/Civil War or that later in 67, is not total in your land. What feels total has been but brief and delusion to be, well, happy. This makes Israel quite distinct from much of history–and quite distinct from the ideal presented in Torah. The proposition that victory need not be total for later prosperity is quite new, not really even embraced by the USSR or US. Nor is it embraced by the powers in Israel but rather forced upon them, as much as they may struggle to escape the conclusion. We have no idea if this proposition is sustainable. If not, I think the conclusion far out reaches your land in implication.
And I further thought, listening to you tell of the deterrence build up on the Lebanon and now Syria / Israeli border, that if there is a northern war striking aerially deep into Israel, the Israeli left will be wholly dead.
The following Hezbollah Quiz, which I first read at Juan Cole’s site, is very well sourced and informative: https://detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com/hezbollah-quiz/