An attack on Israel from Lebanon is an attack by the country of Lebanon, all of it. The price will have to be paid by all, Shia, Sunni, Druz and yes, even our friends the Maronite. If the pain is not equally shared there is no incentive to avoid it. Hiz-ebola has repeatedly demonstrated that sacrificing their own is not a problem. Martyrdom and glory in death are desirable for them. The rest, not so much. Why should the Druz and Maronite push to avoid a war if they know they will be spared the greatest pain? The Shia Hiz-ebola and their Sunni Balistinian refugee based friends have not much to lose, they are willing to die for their cause, Crocodile tears from Aoun about his airport and bridges should not be the extent of their suffering in the event of an attack. The pain should be enough to have the Druz and Maronite fight as hard as they can to avoid a war and keep Lebanon's southern front quiet. As Giora Eiland astutely indicated, the message to the world has to be loud and clear starting now. Lebanon's patrons, Saudi Arabia, France and the US, should understand what is at stake and so should all Lebanese citizens. Israel can't afford to play the good boy/bad boy game.

dare one more escapade against Israel.

So the good guys should be given money so lebanon can be beautiful again and flourizh apparently. Keep ur money and founding as weve seen it in action in iraq and syria when u give money to the good guys....isis alqueda and ur friends from nursa

... Lebanon War?

Most people will recall that during that long & difficult encounter, the Lebanese national infrastructure was in fact hit quite hard by the IDF... including destruction of oil storage tanks near Sidon whose plume of pollution then drifted far to the north, badly damaging the Lebanese coast.

In short, the Lebanese infrastructure got no free pass from Israel in 2006.

That being said... it's not at all clear that a strategy of linking the Lebanese state to Hizbollah was particularly successful or yielded extra results..

Rather, what would ultimately seem to be more effective would be for IDF to throw all its might against Hizbollah (and, if necessary, also against its Syrian & Iranian allies in the Lebanon theatre).

Why alienate the rest of the population - most of whom already loathe Hizbollah? Why punish the Christians, Druze & Sunni of Lebanon because of Aoun's behavior?

The idea should be to expand Israel's potential base of support - rather than add to its enemies list!

A war against Lebanon, almost sounds as if the Maj. General (res) is suggesting that Israel take on the little guy to avoid a fight with the big guy. That's how it reads.... NOT A SAVORY IDEA. A war against Lebanon WILL trigger a war with Hizbollah, for sure and because they know it will only last 3 days, they will for sure pull out all the stops. In any new conflict Israel MUST BLITZ the ENTIRE AREA or risk loosing the war!

former lebanese prime minister faud siniora made it clear that hezbollah
is a lebanese movement.
although siniora himself is sunni, he considers the shia terror proxy
of iran as part of the lebanese armed forces.

the general opinion by western analysts that there is an unbreachable
gap between the sunni and the shia world is mistaken.
despite the many disagreements and fights between the two sides,
they certainly agree that israel is a common enemy in the most
existential sense.

tHE PROBLEM WITH THE ISRAELI SOCIETY IS THAT IT HAS BECOME EMOTIONALLY BLUNTED AND UNCONFIDENT AS A RESULT OF A SERIES OF BAD AND CORRUPT LEADERSHIP. To be victorious in the battle field a soldier needs to be sure of his cause and to have a will to sacrifice. To a large extent this is currently absent in the average Israeli. F- 35 and computers do not win wars. I hope that in dire straits a hero will be found that would be able to rally the population behind him. Historically the best Israeli soldiers that still won wars were kibbutzniks.....It will be up to the yeshiva buchers to prove themselves in war....not pointless skirmishes like "casted lead" and "tzuk eitan".

If another war breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon all of the whiny Canadian expats who are sitting on pension in Lebanon will come crying to the Canadian Govt. demanding evacuation (at Canadian taxpayer expense).
They did this in the last war and then went running back to Lebanon as soon as hostilities ended.

Hezballah has been used and abused by those mentors.

Israel can try to enlighten the ordinary citizens of Lebanon on their fake partners.

Time for that big war that no one wants but everyone knows is inevitable. Europe is a pathetic slaughter bait. They can do nothing. Trump is in the White House. Putin will be frozen over consternation that P-boy Obama is in retirement, ergo Iran's number one sponsor is out of the picture. Level Lebanon, send in hunter-killer teams into the Lebanese interior to exterminate the Hez in its lair. Prepare for regional war with Iran and prepare to win it. Israel must prepare. Many Israelis wish their state were simply a Santa Monica on the Med. No such luck. This next fight was assured by Israel's perceived ineptitude in 2006, largely enabled by a liberal consensus and the lasting effects of the stunted Aviv Geffen generation, aided and abetted by US lib Jews with not a clue as to the state of Man. The 90's are gone. The Clintons are licking their wounds in upstate NY. Oslo the crock those of us on the right knew it to be from the get-go. We don't have to act like that anymore. Time to kill Hezbollah. Get it done.

Once more Giora Eiland is trying to sell us the same (lack of) "strategy" with the "more bombs" variant. He already wrote similar articles in 2015.

This approach is wrong and counterproductive.

Some, mainly politicians worried to loose votes, keep wanting "silence", "some years of quiet"
They are the ones not wanting to see the increased level of the threat that rise at every new conflict and who end up spinning some alternate reality based on wishful thinking.

Lebanon is held hostage of Hezballah everybody hates them.

Destroying Lebanon wouldn't deter Hezballh and would be more bad press against us.

Qatar and gulf friends would pay and get some more hold on the Sunnis.

Hezballah would play the "resistance" ending up justifying its military lordship of Lebanon. Everybody else would shut up for lack of alternative power.

It would be more effective to use the strike abilities Giora wants to use against Lebanon to hit Hezballah where it is more vulnerable being deployed in the field and where it would hurt more the Shia front, in Syria.

No Hezballah field force, Sunni threat on their Beka homeland, no whantom destruction laid on Lebanon, loss of power and face at home, increase restlessness among Shia constituency against Syrian "adventure", discord in the Shia alliance (Assad unhappy about loosing auxiliary troops, materiel and maybe territory), NO ONE BLAMING US...

Putin not interfering ... this could be a better and cheaper solution compared with a couple of weeks of "more Isreali destruction" on all world media.

What do we want?

Smashing everything or getting Hezballah where it could be likely fatal for it?

This way we could recover a good deal of the face we lost in the last decade, which wouldn't be a bad thing either

Before I start, I just want to make sure that everybody understands one fundamental "detail", and that is that Cis-Jordan, Trans-Jordan, Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon up until the bend of the Litani river, is our legal homeland according to international law - the San Remo treaty and the Anglo-American treaty - two legally binding treaties recognized by international law but ignored by the "world community" for political reasons.

Yes, of course we Jews are the historical native population of the above mentioned designated territory, but Israel's leadership MUST hammer into the heads of the world's governments and mass media, that Israel has LEGITIMATE and LEGAL claims to Southern Lebanon, and that Lebanon's claims to Southern Lebanon are null and void according to international law.

It's neither the United Nations nor the EU that has legal power to define Israel's legal borders, but the legally binding San Remo treaty and the equally legally binding Anglo-American treaty that both stipulate the legally defined borders of the Jewish state, and the Jewish state does include Southern Lebanon up until the bend of the Litani river. This isn't an opinion. This is a fact, and it's completely irrelevant what the people of Lebanon thinks. It isn't their land.

Now to the point. Israel's strategy should be:

1) Completely destroy Hezbollah's stockpile of missiles and rockets at any cost, even if that means that hundreds of thousands of "innocent civilians" in Lebanon will die. These rockets and missiles, unless they are stopped, will kill thousands of people in Israel. Israel must launch an all out war against Hezbollah's rocket and missile stockpile until there isn't a single rocket or missile left in Hezbollah's hands. This should be Israel's NR 1 PRIORITY.

2) Completely annihilate Hezbollah and Nasrallah from the face of the earth and warn Lebanon's citizens that if or when they decide to cooperate with Hezbollah they too will be regarded as legitimate targets in Israel's eyes.

3) Israel should dismantle and neutralize Lebanon's air force, navy and army. Israel's policy must be clear: we will NOT tolerate the existence of ANY Lebanese armed forces, and the existence of such will be regarded by Israel as an act of war, and will be managed and treated that way by Israel's poltical and military leadership.

4) Expel the entire Arab population from Lebanon SOUTH of the Litani river, to Lebanon NORTH of the Litani river.

5) Annex Southern Lebanon and extend Israel's sovereignty and independence to that specifically designated area.

6) Populate and settle Southern Lebanon with Jews/Israelis.

7) Civilian Lebanon NORTH of the Litani river will be spared, but all Lebanese armed forces and all Hezbollah terrorists will be neutralized.

This should be Israel's next strategy.

Having the biggest stick in the region doesn't mean it is the solution for all problem.

There are for sure better people with better words to explain it, but we cannot charge, once more, smashing everything like a bull trying to skewer elusive hezbollani just because we happen to have the means to raze a country.

The means at our disposal cannot determine our actions. They must remain options to be chosen.

The "more bombs" "strategy" shows the frustration at not being able to destroy Hezballah, it is the child of the "so let's destroy their neighbors strategy" (who are Hezballah victims too), which won't solve a thing.

Let's find instead someone who could "solve" some of Hezballah.

... in defeating the obscurantist cancer represented by the Party Gods.

Think twice before you start a war.