We now also have it in writing, in a thousand exploding copies: Israel wants a war, a big one. There is no other way of understanding the glittering and exploding Hollywood-style operation in Lebanon other than the transmission of a determined pager message to the enemy, revealing Israel's true intentions. One thousand explosions with 3,000 injuries are an invitation to war. It will come.
Hollywood is already writing the scripts, but in reality, in contrast to action and sci-fi movies, there exists the day after. Anyone excited by exploding pagers should go to the theater, because in the real world a clear objective should be determined for every action taken. We're not in technology Olympics, with medals for the most amazing operation. We are in the middle of the most criminal and most redundant war Israel has ever embarked upon. And it turns out that it wants another one.
It's inconceivable that after a yearlong failed war in Gaza, which has not attained any goal or chalked up any achievement for Israel other than satisfying a lust for vengeance, Israel wants another. It's inconceivable that after Israel has paid and will continue to pay such a fateful price in the wake of the war in Gaza, it desires more war. It's unimaginable, but it's a fact.
Just like the war in Gaza, the exploding pagers in Lebanon are pointless. Compliments to the planners and executors, we've conquered Rafah and blown up the pagers; hats off to the Israel Defense Forces and Mossad, but now what?attack
Has the difficulty of the northern residents improve the other day when the pagers roared? Is Israel now in a safer place? Was the fate of the hostages improved? Did Israel's status in the world benefit? Did the Iranian threat dissipate? Did a single thing change for the better as a result of the latest hush-hush operation other than the already inflated egos of our security-associated people?
Just like the glorious assassinations which never contributed anything, so are the pager heroics, nothing but a cinematic gimmick. Other than the drool shed in TV studios by people who salivate over every dead or wounded Arab, Israel's situation on the day after is worse than it was on the day before this heroic operation, even if people gave out sweets in Israel.
War in the north moved closer the other day, at an alarming speed. It will be the most preventable war in the country's history. It could be its biggest bloodbath as well. When Hezbollah explicitly states that it will stop shooting as soon as a cease-fire deal is signed with Hamas, and Israel is unwilling to stop the war in Gaza under any circumstances, it is inviting Hezbollah to attack it. That's what a war of choice looks like.
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defense system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/JALAA MAREY
If the war in Gaza worsened Israel's situation by any possible measure, the war in the north will cause a thousand-fold more damage. Gaza could become only the prelude to the disaster of the next war: the casualties, the destruction, the hostility around the world, the horror and the hatred continuing for generations could create a situation in which we'll miss the horrific and costly battles in the Gaza neighborhood of Shujaiyeh. And this is what we want to bring upon ourselves, with our own hands?
But things are simpler than they seem. A cease-fire in Gaza will bring a cease-fire in the north. Then we can talk about making a deal. Even if it isn't achieved, a reality without a war in the north is preferable for Israel. No one knows with certainty what we'll look like after another war. How much we'll bleed and how much we'll be beaten before we ostensibly win. Just like it would have been better if the war in Gaza had not broken out – it too was obviously a war of choice – it would be much better if the war in the north does not happen.
Perhaps it's still possible to prevent it (which is much more doubtful after the exploding pagers). But for this to happen, Israel must abandon the belief that it can solve everything by force, with arms, with exploding pagers, with assassinations, with war. In my naivete I believed that Israel had learned this lesson in Gaza. On the day after the pagers, one can determine with certainty and sorrow: it hasn't. Far from it.