Security analysts and former officials said the damage Israel had inflicted on Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, had stripped Tehran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack.
Israel has a freer hand to respond forcefully to Iran’s missile barrage on Tuesday than it did in April, security analysts and former officials say, when its retaliation for the previous Iranian attack was a largely symbolic strike against an air-defense installation in Iran.
In April, Israel was worried that issuing too intense of a response would prompt Iran to order its proxy militias — particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon — to retaliate extensively.
But after launching a bombing campaign that killed Hezbollah’s leader and other commanders last week, along with a ground invasion overnight Tuesday, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, stripping Iran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in Iran.
Uh... What? Israel's raison d'etre in the modern Middle East is to cull Iranian influence because the US doesn't want an independent major power in the region. And that's before we get into the whole genocide business.
Israel has more than just US interests on their mind. Proxy wars aren't neutral battlefields.
Iran's allies unites the nonrecognition of a) the Israeli people and b) the state Israel. The Israeli electorate and thus by extension the IDF doesn't trust its neighbours (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran) to recognise Israel (a, b) anytime soon, which translates to them as 'peace was never an option'. Occupation didn't work, because internationalised guerrilla warfare muddies the waters of combatant status.
The binary nonrecognition is thus a recipe for wars to come, because the Israelis are highly motivated by what they see as an existential threat. Gaza has the same problem, but the 7. October translates to the Israelis as mutual agreement of almost anything is allowed now.