Instead of dictating the strategic reality and creating deterrence that prevents the next threat, Israel once again appears to be dragged into managing a tactical, localized conflict that causes us to lose the ability to decide the campaign.
Every day, sometimes several times a day, Hezbollah sends explosive drones to kill IDF soldiers — all while a “ceasefire” is supposedly in place. This week alone, Warrant Officer (res.) Alexander Glovanyov was killed, and another person was critically wounded on Thursday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency discussion on the issue, as did the IDF chief of staff.
The drone is a tactical threat. It is a tactical threat that harms our soldiers, and therefore, a defensive solution must certainly be found. But it does not justify pushing an entire nation into a psychological defensive crouch.
I am not arguing that protective solutions are unnecessary. Defense is an essential layer. But the urgency and panic that accompany every technological development by the enemy point to a loss of composure — and, more importantly, blur and ignore the far more significant problem.
Israel has known about the danger posed by drones for several years, following the Russia-Ukraine war. Even before that, when I served in Netanyahu’s security cabinet in 2018, we held a discussion on the matter. It was only a matter of time before the terrorist organizations surrounding us began using them. Everyone knew it, everyone talked about it — and once again, as in previous cases, nothing was done.
They sat and waited, perhaps because they were busy with other things. They sat and waited until the drones began exploding over the heads of our soldiers.
The panicked race to find a solution to the drone threat — a threat that absolutely requires answers because it is costing lives, but is fundamentally tactical — will not help and will not solve the deeper problem, which demands long-term strategic planning.
That deeper problem is policy. After fiber-optic drones, another threat will come, and then another. If we continue focusing only on the next defensive solution, we will eventually all find ourselves living inside an atomic bunker.
When Qassam rockets began falling from Gaza, we developed Iron Dome. We thought we had found a solution and that quiet would return. Then came October 7.
We are in an endless defensive chase in which we will always be one step behind, investing enormous resources in passive protection instead of fundamentally changing the rules of the game.
The real solution must first and foremost be deterrence. The response to every attempt to harm us, large or small, should be simple and unequivocal: for every drone launched at us, the price must be the destruction of a building in Dahieh. Immediately, without hesitation and without delay.
Ayelet ShakedPhoto: Reuven KapuscinskiOnly exacting a heavy strategic price for every tactical action will make clear to the other side that the equation has changed and that attacking us simply does not pay.
In this context, it must be said that the fact that Hezbollah terrorists are killing our soldiers, while a “ceasefire” is in place, and that the political echelon is tying the IDF’s hands, is unacceptable. Full responsibility for this rests on the shoulders of the prime minister, who allowed and continues to allow this reality.
This fixation on defense is the direct result of leadership that has learned nothing. This is what happens when, after October 7, the military investigates itself while the government is busy fleeing responsibility and blocking any possibility of an external inquiry.
And so, instead of leading an offensive line that initiates and shapes reality, we remain stuck in the same failed “concept” that has proven itself disastrous time and again.
The time has come to stop this exhausting defensive race and return the war to enemy territory.