Trump's traffic light is already flashing. All that remains is to wait and see whether the green light appears, followed by the US stepping up its war against Iran, forcefully reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and capturing Kharg Island, through which Iran exports its oil; or whether the red light appears, bringing the war to an end through an agreement that guarantees the continued rule of the ayatollah regime in Tehran.
What is clear is that once the war ends, both Trump and the Iranians will rush to declare victory. The regime in Tehran will boast that it survived an attempt by the US and Israel to overthrow it and will promise to continue pursuing its goals, chief among them Israel's destruction. Trump, for his part, will highlight the military achievements, above all the severe blow dealt to Iran's military capabilities and the strengthening of his own standing as a leading world leader with whom no one wants to tangle. All that will remain for us is to make sure that any agreement with Iran, if one is reached, also safeguards the Israeli interests for which we went to war.
But for anyone who has forgotten, Israel is also at war on its northern border, against the Hezbollah terrorist organization. That war, even if it was expected, began with the opening of the campaign against Iran and is closely tied to it. Not surprisingly, among the demands Iran presented to Trump for ending the fighting was a demand to halt the fighting in Lebanon as well, and it cannot be ruled out that Trump will agree to that demand.
It is doubtful whether anyone here has given sufficient thought to such a possibility, which could hand Hezbollah a dramatic achievement that it would quickly exploit in order to strengthen its standing in Lebanon and rebuild its capabilities against us.
The war in Lebanon has already been going on for three weeks, and for the residents of northern Israel there is no day and no night. Life under nonstop sirens and barrages of missiles and drones has become unbearable. The government decided not to evacuate them from their homes, but it also did not bother to provide them with protective measures. Worse still, it is not acting decisively to remove the Hezbollah threat hanging over them.
The campaign now being waged in the north is proof of our strategic mistake when we agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024, thereby throwing Hezbollah a lifeline that the organization has since known how to exploit. It is also proof of the failure of the IDF's hesitant and limited activity against the organization over the past 15 months, which apparently did not even scratch the surface of Hezbollah, as it continues to fire dozens of missiles toward northern communities as far as Haifa and the Krayot.
What matters is not the mistakes of the past, but the decisions and actions we take now. But the way Israel is conducting the campaign in Lebanon is baffling and alarming, as though no lessons were learned from previous rounds of fighting and as though we did not prepare in advance for the current round. The IDF still has not shifted into a higher gear in the war against the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and it continues to move hesitantly and slowly toward the Litani. It is as though we still have not decided where we are headed, and as though we have all the time in the world before Trump orders us to stop.
Israel must step up its fight against Hezbollah. We must abandon the illusion, which has hardened into a failed conception, that the Lebanese government and army will do the job for us and disarm Hezbollah. At one time, we also believed that the Palestinian Authority would act against the Hamas terrorist organization and disarm it.
Instead, we must strike the organization forcefully, along with its political and economic support network, which we are still not doing. We must also strike the broader Lebanese support structure that shields the organization and allows it to operate against us without interference.
Why did we have to wait three weeks before striking, albeit only in a minor way, some of the bridges through which Hezbollah transports supplies to its operatives in southern Lebanon? Why did it take three weeks to discover that Hezbollah has a body responsible for supplying fuel to its operatives, and to begin attacking its facilities? And like this organization, Hezbollah has dozens of other such bodies that we have still not struck. The list of questions is long.
We would do well to wake up before this round of fighting also ends like its predecessors, without securing the quiet and security that the residents of northern Israel deserve.
