By Seth Mandel
Friday, September 20, 2024
Israel’s recent brilliant campaign of targeted
assassinations is so extensive that—outside of the killing of Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran—the individual strikes tend to run together in one’s
mind. But today’s
announcement that the IDF has eliminated Ibrahim Aqil is a significant one,
and it stands out from the others in a crucial way.
“Aqil and the commanders who were eliminated were among
the architects of the ‘plan for the occupation of the Galilee,’ in which
Hezbollah planned to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the
Galilee, murder and kill innocents, similar to what the Hamas terror
organization carried out in the murderous massacre on October 7,” the IDF said
in a statement.
Before Hamas’s October 7 murder spree in Israel, how many
reactions to this statement—from Israelis, let alone from around the
world—would have been something along the lines of: Oh come on, like anybody
believes Hezbollah was going to invade and occupy Israeli territory. After
October 7, such dismissiveness is foolish—not because Hezbollah’s grand plans
are automatically realistic, but because Israel must respond to the possible,
not merely the likely.
Even after it succeeded, Hamas’s plan for attack seemed
insane. And those Palestinians who were told about it rolled their eyes just as
much as anyone in the Israeli security establishment. But terrorist entities
aren’t states, and national self-interest isn’t at or near the top of their
list of guiding principles.
Early in the war, Israeli TV personality Shlomi Eldar visited
in Cairo with his friend and former senior Palestinian Authority official
Sufyan Abu Zaydeh, who had lived in the Gaza Strip from 2019 until this year.
If you had told him before October 7 what Hamas was hoping to accomplish, he
told Eldar, “I would have answered like any Israeli intelligence officer: It’s
inconceivable that this is what they’re planning.”
But it’s something that another Palestinian told Eldar
that brings the full Hamas zealotry into sharp relief.
“Iyad” (an assumed name) and Eldar talk about the “last
promise,” a kind of end-times prophecy that Hamas believed it was on the verge
of bringing to fruition. Iyad tells Eldar a story: “One day, a well-known Hamas
figure calls and tells me with pride and joy that they are preparing a full
list of committee heads for the cantons that will be created in Palestine. He
offers me the chairmanship of the Zarnuqa committee, where my family lived
before 1948.”
That is Rehovot, in Israel. And Iyad was being offered
the role, essentially, of military governor of the entire area for after Hamas
defeated Israel and divided the entire country into such districts.
Sounds crazy, right? Iyad says he told them “You’re out
of your minds” and asked the person not to call him again.
Hamas was serious, though. In 2021, the group held a
gathering called “The Promise of the Hereafter Conference.” Three guesses what
it was about.
That is the background of today’s strikes in Lebanon.
There is no more talk of how crazy these guys are, as if their apocalyptic
visions are mere punchlines. Of course Hezbollah has plans for similarly
ambitious invasions of Israel. That doesn’t mean such an invasion is imminent,
but neither can it be assumed as not imminent. October 7
changed the stakes. It was a humbling experience for the Israeli
national-security agencies, but a learning one, too.
Of course, Ibrahim Aqil wasn’t targeted only for what he
might do. Forty years ago he helped plan attacks on U.S. diplomatic compounds
in Beirut. Since then, he has been a key player in the planning of Hezbollah
attacks both inside and outside Lebanon. At the time of his death, he was also
leading the group’s elite Radwan Force.
But the bigger-picture lesson here is that Israel will
assume its enemies mean what they say. After October 7, it can’t afford not to.
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