Israel cannot defeat Hezbullies in a direct engagement and the Lebanese guerrilla group would inflict heavy damage on the Israeli home front if war broke out, a former Israeli national security adviser said on Thursday.Though outnumbered and outgunned, Hezbullies held off Israel's advanced armed forces in a 2006 war and fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli territory. The group has a domestic political base and has since bolstered an arsenal that Israel describes as a strategic threat.
Tensions between Israel and Hezbullies's Iranian and Syrian backers have stoked expectations of renewed violence in Leb.
"Israel does not know how to beat Hezbullies," said Giora Eiland, an army ex-general who served as national security adviser to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.
"Therefore a war waged only as Israel-versus-Hezbullies might yield better damage on Hezbullies, but Hezbullies would inflict far worse damage on the Israeli homefront than it did 4-1/2 years ago," he told Israel Radio.
Echoing serving Israeli officials, Eiland said:
"Our only way of preventing the next war, and of winning if it happens anyway, is for it to be clear to everyone ... that another war between us and Hezbullies will be a war between Israel and the state of Leb and will wreak destruction on the state of Leb.
| Ah. There's the buried lede. What they meant was, the next time Israel won't stop the rubble bouncing at the Litani River. |