Israel’s Strategic Dilemma—and Iran’s

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The northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona faces Hezbollah rocket fire and explosive drones, Aug. 29. Photo: Israel Hadari/Zuma Press

The Biden Administration likes to frame Israel’s options in stark terms: Cut a deal in Gaza or face regional escalation. Iran and Hezbollah offer Israel the same choice, and many atop the Israeli security establishment agree. They would like Israel to give up on key terms in negotiations with Hamas. But Israel’s leaders won’t do so because they see the strategic dilemma differently.

Last weekend was set to prove President Biden right. There was no deal—Hamas deemed Israel’s concessions insufficient—so Hezbollah moved forward with an escalation. Its Sunday morning missile launch might have sparked a major war, the one forecast to topple towers in Tel Aviv and leave Beirut looking like Gaza.

It didn’t happen. Instead, Israel pre-empted Hezbollah, destroying thousands of rockets, and Hezbollah scaled down its attack. Israel took the initiative to prevent escalation. That may be the missing third option.

Israel took the initiative again late Tuesday night, launching a surprise operation to sap the West Bank’s escalatory potential. Iran had ramped up its weapons smuggling to the local terrorists, and Hamas had called for suicide bombings. Amid the operation on Thursday, Israel killed Islamic Jihad commander Abu Shujaa, considered the most dangerous man in the West Bank, and arrested his deputy. They were hiding in a mosque. On Friday the Israelis killed Hamas’s chief in Jenin.

At least for now, there is no deal and no escalation either. “We proved them wrong,” says a senior Israeli official. The view is that Hamas doesn’t want a deal. “It didn’t matter what the Americans called it—‘final,’ ‘last-chance final,’ ‘never-again final’—Hamas rejected it.” Hamas wants escalation on other fronts to force Israel out of Gaza. “But when we are able to deter those other fronts, then Hamas is screwed,” the senior official says.

The latest signals can’t have Hamas feeling good. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as a great victory Hezbollah’s firing of 210 rockets Sunday, hitting a chicken coop and not much else. That won’t get it done for Hamas.

Mr. Nasrallah now tells the Lebanese people to “take a breath,” even as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar may be running out of air. Mr. Khamenei in Iran says that “war has many forms,” and that “it doesn’t always mean holding a gun. It means thinking correctly, speaking correctly, identifying correctly, aiming accurately.”

Iran, more than Israel, now faces the strategic dilemma. Would it rather lose Hamas as a meaningful fighting force, or pay the consequences for intervening to try to save its proxy? To Israeli eyes, Iran doesn’t seem eager to find out what those consequences would be.

U.S. forces are arrayed to shoot down Iran’s missiles—or more. Israel is ready to retaliate, and its air force and intelligence agencies have demonstrated the ability to strike anywhere in Iran. Iranian domestic opposition to costly involvement in faraway wars is also growing. But it’s the regime’s choice.

The less hope Hamas has of an Iranian rescue, and the less daylight Hamas sees between the U.S. and Israel, the more likely it will be to settle for a cease-fire.

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