Who in Israel can keep Caesar Netanyahu in check?

Haaretz

The Second Lebanon War created a worldwide precedent. For the first time in history, a country launched a war with no planning. Until then, all initiated wars from Hannibal to George Bush — whether their purpose was defensive, pre-emptive or to take over land — had had planning. So did ours, from the 1956 Sinai Campaign to the Six-Day War to Operation Oranim in 1982, which turned into the first Lebanon war. Planning may not guarantee success, but the lack of it certainly guarantees a fiasco.

Now Israel faces the very real danger that the current situation could turn into an unplanned war. This is not only the business of the Caesar Netanyahu, who is currently in China. News flash for those who could end up dead and are repressing that fact: A thumbs-up or thumbs-down doesn’t happen only at the Colosseum of Facebook.

After the fact, some people tried to see Lebanon 2 as a kind of success since it supposedly deterred Hezbollah. That’s foolish at best, and fraud at worst. Hezbollah was in fact deterred, but by Iran. The whole point of the Lebanese version of Cuba during the missile crisis is to protect Iran’s interests as it acquires nuclear capability. They think it’s a stupid idea to waste the stockpile of arms on a bunch of hot air and red lines.

Anyone who wants to see change come from well-ordered strategic thinking should not be looking either southward or northward. Alon Ben David at the Al-Monitor news website was the first to note this substantial strategic change. Unlike Hezbollah, Hamas has not bothered to replenish its rocket supply since Operation Pillar of Defense. An important component of Iran’s deterrence was relinquished in favor of the pragmatic Islamic alliance now taking shape.

Ehud Barak is a man of many shortcomings. But like a magic wand, one thing led him from boyhood to generalship: He is a constant inventor of strategies. They didn’t always succeed but it wasn't because of any recklessness on Barak's part; he always used them with care. The recent seven years of calm are connected with that, and with his term. And long ago, Barak came up with a plan for an agreement with Hamas that would lead it to a pragmatic, broadly-based Sunni alliance against the radical-messianic Shi’ite axis.

The Sunni Arab League’s historical statement supporting territorial exchange came about as a continuation of the success of Barak’s plan for Hamas and his regional strategy — a strategy that was never carried out because of his Moshe Dayan-like surrender to Netanyahu’s rejectionism. If Israel had been offered full peace with all the Arab states in May 1967, with the borders that existed then — with the Western Wall in another country — more than 90 percent of the people here would have danced in the streets. And now, we have an offer of peace even as Israel occupies Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim, and will be able to keep them. The government, however, responds with frosty silence. A leaf in the forest makes more noise. Just when it is strategically necessary to do so, what with the alliance between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, the silence of “no” cuts right through it.

The government’s striving for the supremacy of “the state’s Jewish character” over democracy brings us back to biblical times. Without a leader, says the book of Judges, “the land was calm for 40 years” — and 40 years was a record. At the end of the Iranian summer, it will be precisely 40 years since our last war against a significant power. It is no coincidence that it will also be 20 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, which was the conclusion of the generation of the leaders of the Yom Kippur War, of which Barak was the last. But then came the demonstrations with their chant of “In blood and fire, we will drive Rabin out,” and the three gunshots in the square. And the man who led those demonstrations became Caesar of the poised thumb.

Two things need to be made clear. First, the government has the right to lead us into a war with Iran. It also has the right to think that the the Lebanese version of Cuba needs to be fought against first. But it has no right to go there without a comprehensive strategic plan. Between “engraving it in our consciousness” and tough red lines, Moshe Ya’alon, the antithesis of Barak, could be crookedly honest.

Second, Yair Lapid sees himself as prime minister. He needs to know that nobody in the government was acquitted for the fiasco of having rejected peace with Sadat, which led to the Yom Kippur War. Members of the government are never built up by a bloody fiasco, for which the caesar from Caesarea could be the main one responsible. When the price for a fiasco is placed at our doorstep, the ones who kept their mouths shut are not the ones who inherit the crown.