What Would You Have Israel Do to Defend Itself?
The New York Times Opinion by David Brooks March 24, 2024

Old article but most still ring true, in this terror war.... including regarding Hezbollah

Extracts:

• Defeating terorrism

For her book “How Terrorism Ends” the Carnegie Mellon scholar Audrey Kurth Cronin looked at about 460 terrorist groups to investigate how they were defeated,
1. Trying to beat them with military force alone rarely works
2. The root causes have to be addressed

As the retired general David Petraeus reminded his audience recently at the New Orleans Book Festival,

• Israel also has to offer the world, a vision for Gaza’s recovery and it has to do it right now

the veteran Middle East observer Dennis Ross argues,
In an essay in Foreign Affairs, Ross sketches out a comprehensive rebuilding effort, bringing in nations and agencies from all over the world, so Gaza doesn’t become a failed state or remain under Hamas control

• vicious enmity

Is any of this realistic given the vicious enmity now ripping through the region?
Well, many peace breakthroughs of the past decades happened after one side suffered a crushing defeat

Egypt established ties with Israel after it was thoroughly defeated in the Yom Kippur War

When Israel attacked Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006 the world was outraged
But after the fighting stopped, some Lebanese concluded that Hezbollah had dragged them into a bloody, unnecessary conflict

The Hezbollah leader [now deceased] Hassan Nasrallah, was forced to acknowledge his error, saying,The Lebanese border stabilized

Israel’s over-the-top responses have sometimes served as effective deterrents and prevented further bloodshed

• Israel and the Palestinians have both just suffered shattering defeats

Maybe in the next few years,
1. they will do some difficult rethinking and a new vision of the future will come into view
2. But that can happen only after Hamas is fully defeated as a military and governing force