Could Lebanon Become Netanyahu's Political Graveyard - for a Second Time?
Only Gadi Eisenkot, by virtue of his military experience, can offer Israelis a way out of the Lebanese quagmire and turn Lebanon into Netanyahu's political grave, like Ehud Barak did when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000
Lebanon was Benjamin Netanyahu's political grave during his first term, ending in 1999.
Israel's entanglement there, however, wasn't of his own making, since he inherited the south Lebanon security zone, the deadly military outposts and fallen soldiers from his predecessors.
Netanyahu, however, failed to grasp the shift in public mood following the 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster and Ansariya ambush, in which commandos were killed. The disasters turned public opinion against Israel's presence in Lebanon, which was increasingly seen as futile, and helped spark the successful "Four Mothers" protest movement.
Netanyahu considered withdrawing from the security zone but didn't dare. The one who realized what was happening and seized the opportunity was his rival Ehud Barak, who had "difficulty taking off" as opposition leader (as people said at the time) and didn't present a convincing political alternative to Likud.
A few months before the 1999 elections, Barak declared that, if elected prime minister, he would pull the IDF out of Lebanon within a year. That was the turning point of his campaign. He defeated Netanyahu and, a rare move in Israeli politics, kept his word by leading the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in June 2000, less than a year after becoming prime minister.
Right-wingers portrayed the withdrawal from Lebanon as a shameful retreat that weakened Israel, strengthened Hezbollah and contributed to the outbreak of the Second Intifada. Ehud Olmert's failure in the 2006 Lebanon War and the force Hezbollah had built up in its aftermath appeared to vindicate these claims. Yet despite the militant rhetoric and persistent warnings about the enemy's growing strength and preparations to invade the Galilee, Netanyahu adhered to the status quo and avoided military entanglement.
The war that began on October 7, 2023, and Israel's subsequent successes against Hezbollah – the pager attack and the assassination of its former leader Hassan Nasrallah – have fueled the territorial ambitions of Netanyahu, his coalition members and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.
They have all sought to replicate in southern Lebanon the model of the first Nakba in 1948 and the second in Gaza during the current war: the expulsion of residents and the destruction of their villages. Shi'ites would be turned into refugees, while Druze and Christians would be allowed to remain, roughly in line with the situation in the Galilee after 1948.
Unlike the original security zone in southern Lebanon, where the IDF operated alongside the Lebanese population, this time preparations are being made for a prolonged occupation and an expansion of Israel's borders. In this situation, Hezbollah is fighting for its home and is demonstrating tactical ingenuity against the IDF's superior force, much as it did in the 1990s. Naim Qassem, Nasrallah's successor, long portrayed in Israel as weak and unserious, has instead emerged as an adversary no less formidable than his predecessor.
Israel's problem goes beyond finding a technological solution to the attack drones threatening its forces. It concerns the unnecessary loss of soldiers' lives in a war with no clear strategic purpose, and no victory photos from Beaufort Castle or striking buildings in Beirut will conceal that failure. Nothing good will come to Israel from occupying southern Lebanon.
Here lies the political opportunity for Gadi Eisenkot. Only he, by virtue of his military experience and general intelligence, can offer Israelis a way out of the Lebanese quagmire and the war of attrition on the other fronts.
Naftali Bennett, the rival contender for leadership of the so-called bloc of change, has mocked Netanyahu as a coward who doesn't dare bomb Beirut's Dahiyeh neighborhood. But what's the alternative you're offering to a Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir government – just even more force?
Eisenkot has spent several years in politics without a clear direction. He commands respect and admiration but has nothing to say. He can now become the man of the hour: the only figure capable of ending the war and stopping the killing and destruction on terms favorable to Israel. He can seize the moment, as Barak did in 1999, and once again turn Lebanon into Netanyahu's political grave.