Israeli commentators underestimate the importance of coordinated threats by the political and military echelons in Tel Aviv to Hezbollah and the Lebanese state over allegations of building factories to produce guided missiles, pointing out that these threats do not necessarily demonstrate a genuine desire to pre-empt a strike on the party.
Some commentators in Tel Aviv argue that the chances of a confrontation with Hezbollah do not exist now because Israel realizes that Iran has not actually started launching any guided missile production plant.
Yossi Milman, an intelligence commentator for the Maariv daily, said both Israel and Hezbollah were still not involved in a military confrontation, stressing that Tel Aviv was aware that the party had not yet launched any factory to produce guided missiles.
In an article published Thursday, Milman noted that Israel has information on Iranian "plans and intentions" to build guided missile production plants in Lebanon in favor of Hezbollah in order to avoid the impact of the Israeli raids in Syria targeting the weapons stores and arms of the " Allah".
He said that according to the cease-fire agreement that ended the 2006 war, Israel should not launch raids inside Lebanon, even with the aim of thwarting the launching of a rocket factory. According to Milman, Israeli threats of a full-scale war targeting Lebanon, the state and the army are also aimed at deterring Hezbollah from launching guided missile factories.
Although Israeli military commentator Ben Caspit believes that the nature of the statements made by the political and military leaders in Tel Aviv demonstrate a willingness to prepare the Israeli public for the possibility of a confrontation against Lebanon, he sees, on the other hand, that the Israeli leadership currently prefer to invest in the field Propaganda campaigns and diplomatic moves, and later in secret intelligence operations to thwart Iran's drive to help Hezbollah produce guided missiles.
The meetings between Israeli and Russian officials, especially the recent meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin, represent the spearhead of Israel's diplomatic campaign to persuade Moscow to act and not allow empowerment, Kaspet said in an analysis published by the Hebrew version of the Montour website. "Hezbollah" from getting guided missiles.
The Israeli analyst said that in his attempt to impress Putin, Netanyahu is keen to take Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and head of the Military Intelligence Division, Herzl Halevy, to present to the Russian president intelligence on the nature of the activities carried out by Iran in Lebanon and Syria, which threaten security Israeli conflict.
He said that Netanyahu was keen to launch the threat of a full-scale war in order to instill fear in Putin that Russia could lose all its achievements in the war, since the consequences of any war waged by Israel against Hezbollah and Iran would not be in the interests of Moscow's allies in Syria and Lebanon.
According to Kaspit, Tel Aviv is making great efforts to persuade the US administration to prepare to thwart the designs of Iran and Hezbollah, but all the indications show that the bet on the administration of US President Donald Trump is not yet valid.
According to the Hebrew analyst, Israel provided indications of its intention to carry out clandestine operations carried out by the army in cooperation with the intelligence agencies aimed at any project to produce guided missiles in Lebanon and touch the human forces supervising it. He said that Minister of War Avigdor Lieberman pointed out that Israel knows the people behind the project to produce guided missiles.
Kaspet said that this is the first time that Israel announced that it is working to monitor Iranian engineers and scientists who are working on the production of guided missiles, expected to be covert operations against the project and those behind him the next stage in the event of diplomatic efforts failed.
Kaspet said that if the secret operations failed to stop the rocket production project, the decision-making circles in Tel Aviv would be required to take a "serious" decision on the next stage, pointing out that Israel will have two options: either to take a decision to pre-emptive strike against " Will inevitably lead to a "catastrophic" confrontation or turn a blind eye to the project to produce guided missiles, pointing out that Israel will be "in front of two options passed by."
He explained, in the same context, that the concerns of decision makers on any decision to launch a war on Lebanon specifically is their fears that the Israeli public to see this war as a war could have been avoided. He pointed out that Israel is convinced that the third Lebanon war will also include the Syrian front, and the participation of all the "Shiite" forces located on Syrian soil.
Senior officials who worked in the Israeli military complex have warned the Netanyahu government of any possibility of a full-scale confrontation with Hezbollah because of its dangers on the home front.
The newspaper Ma'ariv recently quoted three of these officials as saying that prior to any decision to launch the war, Israel was required to evacuate half a million settlers from the Haifa area, fearing that they would be injured by the possibility of the missiles falling on the petrochemical complex in the port of Haifa.
