An Israeli researcher estimated on Monday that the security and strategic challenges facing Israel will increase after the war it is currently waging in the Gaza Strip. Researcher Ronen Schickler expected that the war on Gaza would lead to the deterioration of Israel's strategic and economic position, just like the first war it launched against Lebanon in 1982, which was called the "Peace for Galilee" war.

Shekler added in posts on the “X” platform that there are similarities between the current war that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip and the first Lebanon war, which ended in major failure.

Shekler found that there is a similarity between the Israeli leadership’s pledge that the main goal of the war would be to eliminate the Hamas movement, and the announcement by Menachem Begin’s government in 1982 that the goal of the First Lebanon War was to eliminate the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon, and expel its members from there.

He pointed out that while Israel was able to expel the PLO from Lebanon, it paved the way for the rise of Hezbollah, which took the initiative and fought bloody confrontations with Israel, noting that the total number of Israelis killed since 1982 reached 1,195 soldiers and settlers.

He pointed out that contrary to Israel's pledges that the first Lebanon war would result in the elimination of the sources of "terrorism," it led to its growth, warning that this is what will await Israel if it continues its current war on the Gaza Strip.

He brought to mind the fact that the heavy losses incurred by the Israeli occupation army in Lebanon led to growing rejection among the ruling circles in Tel Aviv and the Israeli public, of the idea of continuing the occupation of southern Lebanon, which ultimately led to convincing former Prime Minister Ehud Barak to issue his instructions to withdraw from the south Lebanon region in Year 2000.

Sheckler warned against the Israeli leadership implementing its threats to impose a security buffer zone along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, noting that this is what must be learned from the experience of the security belt area that Israel imposed south of the Litani River in Lebanon.

He stressed that the security belt that Israel threatens to impose in the Gaza Strip will not only fail to reduce the pace of operations carried out by the resistance from the Gaza Strip, but will also work to intensify them, just as the security belt in southern Lebanon failed to prevent Hezbollah from being able to enhancing its ability to target occupation soldiers.

He highlighted the fact that just as the security belt in southern Lebanon did not prevent the occupation army from being forced to launch military incursions north of the Litani, the inauguration of a security belt in the Gaza Strip will not prevent Israel from once again being forced to launch military operations deep into the Strip.

He explained that the period of calm that prevailed in the confrontation with Hezbollah after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 was exploited by the party to strengthen its military power in an unprecedented manner, which turned it into the greatest source of strategic threat to Israel.

According to Sheckler, even if Israel succeeds in eliminating the “Hamas” movement, an organization “worse than it” will rise in its place, just as the elimination of the PLO led to the rise of “Hezbollah,” which means that eliminating “Hamas” will not lead to remove the threat posed by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. He added that Israel's attempt to impose a cooperative and "friendly" government in the Gaza Strip after the war will end in a miserable failure, just as the experience of the South Lebanese Army, which cooperated with Israel, ended, "because this government will not have legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian public in the Strip."

He described Israel's talk about an Arab force that could take over the Gaza Strip after the war and do the "dirty work" on its behalf as just an "unrealistic fantasy."

source: Al-Araby Aljadeed