WhatsappHistorians will look back and judge Prime Minister Netanyahu as one of the most remarkable war-time Prime Ministers. He will always have to deal with the fact that Israel was shocked on October 7th in the most tragic of all circumstances. He was in charge. Even if much of the fault lies with many of the leaders of the military and intelligence, he still is the commander in chief of the Military, and therefore bears ultimate responsibility for what transpired.
There has nearly never been a war that one country fought on seven fronts simultaneously as effectively as Israel has. Right after October 7th, the conventional wisdom was that Israel would do everything it could to contain it’s battles with Hamas to the southern front. It did not want to have to split it’s Army into two – south and north. This was especially the case as the Hizbullah to Israel’s North posed a massive threat with more than 100,000 missiles aimed at Israel.
In the end, Israel had to face attacks from Hamas in the South, Hizbullah in the North, Syria on it’s northeast border, Iraq to the east, Yemen to it’s southeast, and of course – Iran. Israel, due to the effective leadership of Netanyahu and much of the Army and Intelligence, effectively repelled the attacks from Iran and dismantled most of Iran’s missile defenses in a follow-up attack. This crippling combo will probably be studied for decades.
But the beeper operation in Lebanon against the Hizbullah, an operation that has been in the works for around a decade, is the jewel in the crown of Israel’s recent clandestine operations. In one fell swoop, Israel decapitated nearly the entire Hizbullah leadership. This placed Hassan Nasallah in an impossibly secluded position without any support from his senior leadership. Then Israel simply needed to decide if it would be best to rid the world of this terrorist or wait a bit. Once the die was cast, and Nasrallah as eliminated, the entire northern border of Israel was changed. Israel took over another critical part of the Hermon mountain range, but it dominates much of Lebanon and Syria, thereby greatly enhancing Israel’s control over it’s enemies.
One day, everyone will see that this was one of Israel’s most successful wars in it’s history of fending off it’s enemies and Netanyahu’s legacy as a first-rate leader will be glorified, despite October 7th.
