Will Israel defy Washington and target Hezbollah?

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

The message coming from Israel’s leaders remains unwavering and uncompromising. Come what may, they’re determined to smash Hamas for good, so it can never again carry out a pogrom like it did on October 7.

And for all the mounting pressure from Western allies to curtail its military operation that’s so far led to the elimination of about half of Hamas’ midlevel commanders in Gaza, Israel is bent on pressing forward, searching the suspected hiding places of the militant group’s upper echelon.

According to three officials in Tel Aviv who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity, the administration of United States President Joe Biden has now given Israel until the end of the year to wrap up its war on Hamas — a deadline that was underlined by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a visit to Israel this week. But Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer told a security forum on Thursday that the administration is not imposing a hard deadline on Israel to end its military operation in Gaza.

However, when Israeli officials outlined their plans to the top U.S. diplomat, stating that fighting in southern Gaza would last several months, reportedly Blinken tersely retorted, “You don’t have that much credit.” But Israeli leaders are prepared to incur an overdraft. They’ve defied the U.S. in the past and several times already since the attacks. They will now undoubtedly continue to do so — the question is just how far this noncompliance will go.

A senior Israeli official who POLITICO spoke to, and was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, pulled back the curtain on Israel’s defiance to date. “They advised us not to go into Gaza, but we did,” he said.

“We went into Gaza because that was the only way we could destroy Hamas and free our hostages. They told us, don’t go into the terror tunnels. But if we don’t go into the terror tunnels, there’s no way we can destroy Hamas. They told us not to go into the hospitals despite them being used by Hamas as command and control centers, but we went into those hospitals, and we did what we needed to do. And we’ll do what we need to do to reach decisive victory,” he added.

Noncompliance is in the tradition of Israeli-U.S. relations.

Back in 2007, Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert disregarded his counterpart, President George W. Bush, after the White House shunned his request to target a suspected Syrian nuclear plant. Bush convened his national security team to discuss mounting an airstrike or a covert special forces raid, but his intelligence and military advisers were reluctant. Olmert then went ahead anyway, ordering an airstrike on the suspected reactor.

Code-named “Outside the Box,” this operation was in line with the so-called Begin Doctrine, which former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin first spoke of in 1981. The doctrine simply states Israeli policy to mount preemptive attacks so as to halt a potential enemy’s capability to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to “defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal.”

Olmert recently told POLITICO that, at the time, Bush was furious with him. Beforehand, he had “told me, ‘I am against you acting in Syria; I will not act in Syria, and I urge you not to do it.’ And I said, ‘Mr. President, with all due respect to you, I will decide what’s good for Israeli security, OK?’”

This is Israel’s attitude now when it comes to Hamas: no compromises. Israeli leaders aren’t prepared to gamble on October 7 happening again; they’re going to make sure it never can. And if that upsets allies, so be it.

But an even greater test of Israeli-American relations may be in the offing as well.

U.S. officials have worked tirelessly to try and ensure the war in Gaza doesn’t spill over to Lebanon, broadening a conflict that would guarantee inflaming the whole region. To that end, Washington dispatched two aircraft carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah from attacking Israel. And Biden publicly warned outside actors — taken to mean Iran and Hezbollah — not to get involved.

In large part, that all seemed to work, and Hezbollah and Iran haven’t opened a full second front. “A broader regional conflict has been deterred,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said last month.

But that could be about to change — and not because Hezbollah might initiate a full-scale confrontation but because Israel might decide to do so, seizing the moment to secure its northern border and ensure a pogrom can’t be visited on communities there.

Back in October, Mark Regev — an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — told Britain’s Spectator TV his country was ready for Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite paramilitary group that he labeled a twin of Hamas. However, he gave no indication that Israel was contemplating targeting the group.

“Hezbollah could try to escalate the situation, so my message is clear: If we were caught by surprise by Hamas on Saturday morning, we are not going to be caught by surprise from the north. We are ready, we are prepared. We don’t want a war in the north but if they force one upon us, as I was saying, we are ready and we will win decisively in the north too,” he said.

Now contrast those remarks with comments made by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday to a group of mayors and municipal leaders from evacuated northern communities, located within just 10 kilometers of the Lebanese border.

Gallant intimated the Israeli government wants to soon turn its attention north, and focus on driving Hezbollah back from the Lebanese border. He said the government wouldn’t encourage some 80,000 evacuated residents to return to their homes before Hezbollah is driven back beyond the Litani River.

During the meeting, Gallant said they hoped this could be achieved through diplomatic means, otherwise Israel will “act with all the means at its disposal.”

The southern stretch of the Litani River runs parallel to the Israel-Lebanon border, 18 miles to its north. And under the terms of the U.N. resolution 1701, which brought the 2006 Lebanon war to a close, Israel agreed to withdraw all its forces from southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah was required to maintain no military presence south of the river.

But Hezbollah hasn’t kept up its end of the U.N.-brokered bargain, over the years entrenching itself in southern Lebanon, in positions overlooking Israel’s border communities. And it has used these positions to launch rocket and missile strikes that have intensified dramatically since the October 7 attacks — part of its effort to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas, short of waging a full-scale war.

Gallant has long been a hawk when it comes to Hezbollah, and Israeli press reports in October suggested he and some military commanders had pressed Netanyahu and the security Cabinet to agree a preemptive strike on Lebanon. Netanyahu, however, was cool on the idea — partly because of entreaties from U.S. officials, who fear Iran would be drawn in, upending the entire region.

But Gallant’s remarks this week were explicit, and Netanyahu is coming under increasing pressure from evacuated families and northern politicians to explain the difference between them and the communities in southern Israel.

Part of the logic of the war on Hamas is to ensure the permanent safety of the kibbutzim in southern Israel, so that families can return to take up their lives. And likewise, the 80,000 Israelis who have been evacuated from near the Lebanese border are now demanding the same safety — or they won’t go back.