Pager Attack Highlights Tension Between Israel’s Might and Strategic Fog

• Sept. 19, 2024

The contrast between the dexterity of Israel’s latest attacks on Hezbollah and the uncertainty over its long-term strategy in Lebanon is the latest example of a fragility at the heart of Israeli statecraft, according to Israeli public figures and analysts.

To friend and foe alike, Israel appears technologically strong, but strategically lost. It is capable of extraordinary acts of espionage, as well as powerful expressions of military might, but is struggling to tie such efforts to long-term diplomatic and geopolitical goals.

“You see the sophistication of the technological minds of Israel and the total failure of the political leadership to carry out any moves of consequence,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister.

“They are too preoccupied and obsessed by their fears to do anything on a broader strategic basis,” Mr. Olmert said.

Israel’s security services have infiltrated and sabotaged Hezbollah’s communications networks by blowing up pagers and other wireless devices this week, but Israel’s leadership appears uncertain about how to contain the group in the long term. Israel has conducted several clandestine missions and assassinations inside Iran, most recently of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by infiltrating a guesthouse protected by the Iranian security establishment. At the same time, it has avoided making the political concessions necessary to forge formal alliances with most of Iran’s opponents in the region.

Its commandos have freed several hostages from captivity through complex special operations, even as its politicians have failed to secure a wider deal to rescue more than 100 others still held in Gaza. And while Israel’s world-leading Air Force has pounded Gaza, destroying much of the territory’s urban fabric and killing top Hamas commanders like Muhammad Deif, the Israeli government has not issued a detailed and viable plan for Gaza’s postwar future.