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Why a Ceasefire Deal with Hizbullah Now Is Bad for Israel
(Ha'aretz) David Daoud - Preconditioning a cessation of hostilities along the Lebanon-Israel frontier on a prior halt to Israel's campaign in Gaza would allow Hizbullah to claim an unprecedented victory over Israel and have a deleterious effect on Israeli deterrence. When Hizbullah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, its objective, articulated by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Nov. 3, was to exhaust Israel into accepting a premature ceasefire in Gaza so "the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and Hamas in particular, emerge victorious." But the war has lasted far longer than the group anticipated or intended. It has trapped Hizbullah between reneging on its commitment to support Gaza, and appearing weak, or continuing a fight it cannot bear indefinitely. The current French and American ceasefire proposals offer no solution to Hizbullah's unyielding enmity towards Israel, which is ideologically based in the belief that the Jews, otherwise divinely ordained to be "stamped with wretchedness and humiliation and anger from God," had built their state on sacred Islamic and stolen Arab land. Hizbullah, therefore, will never be satiated with any Israeli concession, territorial or otherwise, short of the Jewish state's dissolution. The current deals can only ever achieve a temporary, and ultimately illusory, quiet. The cessation of hostilities will give Hizbullah coveted breathing room. This would stanch the bleeding that Israel is currently inflicting, and allow it to resume its military build-up - which will continue unimpeded, as it has since Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, into an ever-larger threat to Israeli security. If a ceasefire is achieved under the current conditions, Hizbullah's narrative will be: In May 2000, we expelled the Zionists from south Lebanon. This time, we expelled them from Israel itself, and they were only able to return to their homes with our permission. So stay the course, the method is working. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.