What Israel’s Future Wars Might Look Like

Recent clashes with various Iran-backed armed groups on multiple fronts have led some to conclude that the days of so-called “limited conflicts” are over for Israel.

“This is the end of the era of limited conflicts,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters at an Apr. 20 press briefing. “We are facing a new security era in which there may be a real threat to all arenas at the same time.”

“We operated for years under the assumption that limited conflicts could be managed, but that is a phenomenon that is disappearing,” he added. “Today, there is a noticeable phenomenon of the convergence of the arenas.”

In April alone, Israel retaliated to rocket fire from Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip amidst clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Israel itself. Gallant charged that Iran is the “driving force in the convergence of the arenas,” adding that Tehran provides Hezbollah with $700 million per year along with “knowledge and strategic weaponry.”

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah seemingly alluded to this “convergence of arenas” when he declared, on Apr. 13, that: “This year, there were many very important developments and events at the global level, the regional level, the Palestinian level and within Israel. All these developments, in my opinion, serve in a way to affirm our long struggle along the axis of resistance with Israel.”

Nasrallah reportedly met with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, successor to the deceased Qassem Soleimani, along with the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad at the Iranian embassy in Beirut in early April.

Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of the 2011 book Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel, described the Apr. 6 firing of 34 Hamas rockets from Lebanon as “a knee-jerk response to the scenes of the evening before of Israeli security forces beating worshippers in Al-Aqsa mosque.”

However, he noted it also came in the context of rising violence in the West Bank, where there are fears of a Third Intifada, escalated Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and Iran-related targets in Syria, and the domestic turmoil inside Israel over so-called judicial reforms.

Recent events and Gallant’s remarks raise the possibility that Israel may feel it will need to simultaneously strike Hezbollah’s enormous missile arsenal if it attacks Iran’s nuclear program. Hezbollah has amassed a much larger and more sophisticated arsenal of missiles since it last fought Israel in 2006. A number of these missiles can strike anywhere in Israel with precision, raising the specter that the group could severely cripple Israel’s infrastructure in the event of another major war.

“If Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities unilaterally without simultaneously addressing the threat from the north (Hezbollah), then Israel runs the risk of a heavy and immediate response from Hezbollah which would lead to an all-out war, with Hezbollah having the advantage of firing the first shot,” Blanford said.

On the other hand, if Israel strikes Hezbollah and Iran simultaneously, “it will definitely trigger an all-out war between the two, with Israel having the advantage of the first shot,” he added.

Iran could also face a scenario in which Israel attacks its nuclear facilities, sufficiently damages them, and sets the whole program back by five years. Tehran would then have to consider ordering an immediate Hezbollah counter-strike knowing full well it would spark a major war with Israel with no guarantees for how it might end for its most powerful and well-financed proxy.

“In this respect, Hezbollah is a one-shot retaliatory option for the Iranians,” Blanford said. “Would they choose to expend Hezbollah’s deterrence capacity just because their program is set back a few years? The Israelis might assess that they can get away with a powerful strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities based on that very premise – that Iran won’t want to waste Hezbollah after the fact when it could continue to serve as a deterrence in case someone decides it would be a good idea to go for regime change in Tehran.”

“But if the Israelis get that gamble wrong, woe betides the serving prime minister that gave that order,” he added. “So, it is complicated.”

Simultaneous preemptive Israeli strikes against Lebanon and Iran wouldn’t be historically unprecedented in light of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, when Israel preemptively destroyed the air forces of several of its Arab neighbors in a series of simultaneous airstrikes. On the other hand, Blanford believes it could be unprecedented “in the scale of loss of life and damage to Israel as a result.”

In recent years, he succinctly summed up the lethal consequences of a Third Lebanon War when he predicted this dire outcome: “Israel’s domestic front will experience its greatest destruction and loss of life since the 1948 war. Lebanon will be turned into a car park.”

Today, he is somewhat hopeful full-scale war can be avoided for now. All will ultimately depend on the calculations and interests of both sides.

“Right now, neither Israel nor Hezbollah wants to get into a full-on shooting match because of the level of destruction that will ensue for both countries,” he said.

Recent remarks from Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah suggest that his Iran-backed movement is confident it can deter Israel. Blanford noted that the group always “feels encouraged” when it sees Israel “gripped with internal unrest.”

In the early 2000s, Hezbollah predicted the end of Israel was near during the Second Intifada. However, it was proven wrong when Israelis united against the Palestinian threat.

“The difference this time is that the threat from the Palestinians is growing once again, but it’s joined by the domestic intra-Israeli unrest over the judicial reforms on the surface, but perhaps a more fundamental difference over where Israelis see their country going in the years ahead,” Blanford said.

He pointed to the major differences between liberal Israelis in Tel Aviv and the religious Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The incumbent government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the most rightwing in Israel’s history, emboldening hardliners in the country and sharpening domestic societal divides. This has also emboldened Hezbollah. On Mar. 13, a man Israel believes to be a Hezbollah member infiltrated the Israel’s north and carried out a roadside bomb attack at the Megiddo junction, injuring a 21-year-old Israeli Arab.

Blanford expects more violence soon.

“I think we could well see more rocket launches from Lebanon in the weeks ahead if things continue to be violent in the West Bank and Gaza, especially as the hesitant Israeli response to the Apr. 6 rocket attack was perceived as weakness by Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said.

“That makes for a very dangerous situation where the risk of miscalculation rises to the fore once again.”