299 - Building Upon Success: Netanyahu Could Achieve a Lasting Peace

            As many all over the world gather today to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish new year, Israelis will doubtless be applauding their military's striking success against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Having fled southern Lebanon for safety in the embattled country's far north or inside war-torn neighboring Syria, ordinary Lebanese will be bemoaning the loss of so many collaterally damaged non-combatants in Israeli air strikes and pager and walkie-talkie explosions.  The dead are too many, whatever the justification, just as the numbers of non-Hamas killed in the past retaliatory year are also too numerous.

            But the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and its overall leader, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are at last triumphant. Mossad, Israeli's CIA, military intelligence, and the Israeli air force have all rescued their reputations after being too complacent about Hamas' intentions before Oct. 7, 2023. Mossad and military intelligence have skillfully demonstrated their enormous cyber and message intercept capabilities. The major assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah and other key Hezbollah and Iranian operatives in south Beirut and Tyre also show the extent to which Mossad and the IDF have carefully cultivated and employed informants and spies within Lebanon and within the ranks of Hezbollah.  The bombing last month of Ismail Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas, in an official safe house in Tehran, also demonstrates how effectively the small but powerful state of Israel has long been able to project power far beyond its tiny confines along the Mediterranean coast.

            Netanyahu is triumphant. That means that he has likely recovered much of the popular standing that he lost within Israeli after the Hamas outrage almost a year ago. Hamas's invasion happened on his watch and resulted as much because of his conniving with Qatar to build up Hamas financially in order to counterbalance and weaken a real Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank as it occurred because of mistakes by Mossad.

            The attacks on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a form of "mopping up," continue this morning.  The IDF is determined to push Hezbollah missile launchers, tank battalions, and soldiers north of the Litani River. If successful, and if the IDF and can destroy more of the 120,000 missiles that Hezbollah had pointed at Israel a few weeks ago (perhaps 60,000 have now been demolished), then -- and only then -- 70,000 Israeli kibbutznik and other settlers can return to their towns and homes just south of the official Israel/Lebanon border. Netanyahu says that is why his soldiers now in Lebanon and his air force need to accomplish such a mission -- to teach Hezbollah (and, by inference, Iran) not to continue to menace Israel and its people.

            Netanyahu and the IDF, with American assistance, also repelled a major Iranian missile assault on Monday. There were limited casualties; David's Sling and the Iron Dome both effectively protected Israelis from what appeared to this outside observer to be an expressive assault, not an air attack that was meant to be instrumental.  The last thing the aging ayatollah of Iran and his new, somewhat moderate, government, want is engage in and lose a real shooting war with Israel.

            Despite these meaningful victories against both Hezbollah and Iran (although the campaign against Hezbollah continues this holy morning), neither Netanyahu or Israel are safe and home free. Perhaps as many as ninety-five hostages are still alive, and not rescued. Many likely are being used to shield Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' leader, in the tunnels that he has employed effectively to escape capture by the IDF. 

            Hezbollah and Hamas are both severely damaged now, but neither is yet eliminated as a terrorist entity and, as before, both Iranian-backed proxy forces are likely to be resilient. Israel has now flexed its muscles extremely effectively. But neither Israel nor Netanyahu have moved the endangered state out of harm's way.

            To do so, and to establish the kind of enduring peace (promised in the now lamented Oslo Accords), Netanyahu needs to remake both himself and Israel.  In this new hallowed Jewish year there is path for both to legitimacy -- a path to redeem the deaths of so many non-combatants, to rescue the hostages, and to restore Israel's global credibility.  (And redemption and honoring those killed on Oct. 7 demands nothing less.)

            One major achievement that is still within Netanyahu's reach is the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia. Hamas attacked a year ago in large part to stop such a new, and game-changing, linkage.  Given Israel's newly demonstrated power and finesse, forging a diplomatic deal with the Saudis now would further diminish Iran, raise Israel's Middle Eastern and global stature, and probably crown Netanyahu's leadership.

            But there can be no such new arrangement with Riyadh until Netanyahu jettisons his extreme right-wing accomplices -- the Party of God and his cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir -- whose backing enables him to remain prime minister. They stand firmly in the way of a true cease fire in Gaza and a possible final cessation from combat in Lebanon. Most of all, they are determined to block anything that re-creates the Palestinian state that was supposed to be birthed in what is now the Occupied West Bank.

            Netanyahu's only conceivable path away from almost perpetual regional conflict (which would destroy Israel and, ultimately, himself) is to build upon his new triumph over Hezbollah, and the credibility it has given him, to rise above his reliance on the far right and, instead, to build upon the Abraham Accords, start to establish a meaningful Palestine, stop the illegal settlements in the West Bank, and talk to the Saudis  (brokered by Washington).  If he moved smartly in this manner, he could replace Smotrich and Ben-Gvir with more centrist Israeli politicians and open a vast range of new, exciting, possibilities for the Israeli state. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been urging such a smart move. It would checkmate Iran and give Netanyahu chess king a secure setting.

            Making such an unexpected foray would be no more challenging than his extremely risky pre-emptive thrust against Hezbollah.  The wider war with Iran could still come, but being positive about Palestine and the Palestine Authority would override any need for more war.

            Can Netanyahu so dramatically change course?  Possibly, because he ultimately cares more about himself and his survival as a deal maker and leader. And he cares about his legacy. Moreover, there is no other way to sail into a safe harbor, for him or for most Israelis. It is the only route to a sustainable future for Israel.