Why Israel Escalates. Risky Assassinations Are a Desperate Bid to Restore Deterrence

By Dalia Dassa Kaye

The ten-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip long ago escaped its local geography, triggering dangerous military escalations across the Middle East—deadly clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Houthi assaults in the Red Sea and on Tel Aviv, attacks by Iranian-aligned militias against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and even direct clashes between Israel and Iran. Then, within the space of 24 hours last week, Israel took responsibility for the assassination of Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, in Beirut in retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights, and the country is assumed to be behind the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, in Tehran. This one-two punch made many observers fear the eruption of an even more catastrophic regional war.

Why is Israel now escalating in such a risky manner? To be sure, its latest attacks are not, on their own, unprecedented. The country has a lengthy record of assassinating Palestinian leaders and has killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and Syria. Israel has also long demonstrated intelligence capabilities that allow it to penetrate deep inside Iran. And previous rounds of escalation over the past ten months have not led to an all-out regional war. But eventual de-escalation and containment are never guaranteed; any state’s rational calculations favoring restraint can suddenly be overtaken by events on the ground, leading to miscalculations or even intentional strategic decisions to provoke a wider conflict. The tempo and nature of the latest Israeli strikes dramatically increase the risk of more serious escalation. Israel’s leaders undoubtedly understand that the back-to-back assassinations of Shukr and Haniyeh—and the fact that the methods of the killings maximized Iran’s humiliation—will likely trigger Tehran, and possibly the other armed groups it backs, to retaliate.

Accounts of last week’s assassinations in the Western media tend to highlight Israel’s abilities to launch militarily and technologically sophisticated attacks deep within enemy territory. After the embarrassment of October 7, these depictions may give the impression that the Israeli military is once again invincible. But this interpretation misreads the difficult realities Israel faces. Israel may be pushing the limits in its regional actions not because it feels strong but because it feels weak. Fundamentally, it is bringing little long-term strategic calculus to its decisions. Hamas’s October 7 attack dealt a devastating blow to its deterrence posture. Now, willing to assume greater risks and absorb higher costs, Israel seeks to take tactical advantages when it can in a frenetic attempt to restore deterrence.

FEAR FACTOR

To understand Israel’s current calculations, it is important to appreciate how the country’s psyche has changed since October 7. Before Hamas’s attack, Israel’s confidence had reached a peak. Israel had come to believe that the Arab states would accept it even if it had not resolved its conflict with the Palestinians and that it could strike Iran and its allies virtually without consequences or jeopardizing the support it enjoys from the United States. Then, nearly overnight, that confidence transformed into a sense of deep vulnerability. On a late June visit to Tel Aviv, security experts and former defense and intelligence officials alike repeatedly told me that October 7 had overturned many of Israel’s prior beliefs about its strength. Hamas’s attack shattered Israelis’ most basic assumptions: that their military and technological superiority could deter their adversaries, that they could live securely behind walls and fortified borders, and that they could prosper economically without making major advances toward peace with the Palestinians. Now, many in the security establishment are recognizing that “Israel is not that strong,” as one former national security official bluntly told me.

Many Israelis who study or work in national security are furious with their own government for its massive security failures on and after October 7; they are also angry that the leaders who failed to keep the country safe have not been held accountable. Mistrust of the government is pervasive. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have received standing ovations when he addressed the U.S. Congress in July. But his national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, could barely get a word in when he spoke at an Israeli security conference in Herzliya weeks earlier. Audience members heckled him and accused the government of neglecting Israel’s safety and failing the hostages still languishing in Gaza. Even within Israel, there is a widespread perception that Netanyahu may be prolonging the war for his own political survival.

This anxiety and outrage reflect tangible domestic challenges to Israel’s national security. The Israel Defense Forces is stretched thin on multiple fronts, from Gaza to the West Bank to Israel’s north and beyond. Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul the country’s judiciary in the first half of 2023 had already created serious rifts between civilian leaders and the military’s top brass; in response to the push by Netanyahu’s coalition, thousands of Israeli reservists threatened that they would not report for duty. The military faces unprecedented threats from domestic extremists, including from within its own ranks and the ranks of government. Just last week, right-wing activists and politicians stormed one of the Israeli military’s own bases to protest the detention of reservists accused of abusing Palestinian prisoners. Israel is hemorrhaging international support because of the enormous death toll and destruction in Gaza, and in legal forums in The Hague, it faces increasing scrutiny for its conduct of the war and its ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

APRIL FOOLS

The effect that Iran’s April attack had on Israel is, moreover, underappreciated outside the country. Israel clearly miscalculated when it targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel at a facility in Damascus that the Iranians viewed as a diplomatic site. It did not anticipate such an unprecedented, massive, and direct response involving hundreds of drones and missiles launched from Iranian territory at Israel.

Although Israelis admired the sophisticated and coordinated U.S.-led defense that repelled the assault, it also punctured their self-reliant image. Any sense of triumphalism was overshadowed by the alarm that Iran would have attempted such a serious attack in the first place—and concern that the next such assault may not be so easily repelled. Israeli analysts were pleased that Israel’s retaliation—a limited air attack on an Iranian military base in Isfahan that targeted Iran’s air defenses—demonstrated Israel’s ability to hit targets accurately inside Iran, including sites in close proximity to Iranian nuclear facilities.

But Israeli defense officials do not necessarily feel comfortable relying on deterrence by denial—that is, by convincing adversaries that attacks would not succeed—as the United States prefers. In these officials’ view, the April defense of Israel was not a total success because, ultimately, the defensive coalition did not prevent the attack; it only limited the damage. Israeli defense planners prefer deterrence by punishment—showing adversaries that attacks will provoke consequences. Many Israeli security analysts are concerned about Israel’s eroding regional position; they worry that Iran and its allies are gaining in strength and that Iran may be further incentivized to weaponize its nuclear capabilities if Tehran believes it is not sufficiently able to deter Israel through conventional means. They believe that the country is being degraded to second-tier status as Iran tries to reach the “champion league,” as one former national security official put it. Israel is losing deterrence “to an extent never seen,” another former defense official told me. And yet Israel’s political leadership continues to tell its people that their country is winning.

The April Iranian attack deepened Israelis’ perception of a fundamental change in the “spirit” of the Middle East. Israel’s adversaries, they believe, may now think that destroying the country is actually a realistic goal. This concern may be hyperbolic—Israel maintains the most advanced military capabilities in the region and continues to have the strong backing of the United States and other Western powers in its fight against Iran. But sober Israeli analysts now express a sense of existential threat that they describe as different from any they have felt since the country’s independence in 1948. But unlike in 1948, one former senior official noted, Israel is not heeding the lessons of its founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. The best ways to compensate for weakness, Ben-Gurion advised, were to strengthen social cohesion, deepen diplomatic relationships, and pursue peace. Israel is moving in the opposite direction on all fronts.

UP THE HARDENED PATH

On my visit, one former government official told me that “the ground is changing beneath our feet.” In some ways, this is true; in others, it is a perception, the reverse image of the overconfident self-image that Israelis held before October 7. But given the perception and the reality of increased vulnerability—and Israelis’ confidence that they will retain the United States’ backing—Israel is likely to maintain an aggressive posture in the region even if that increases the risk of a wider regional war. After the trauma of October 7, the Israeli public’s acceptance of risk and its appetite for offensive actions may be higher, too. As an Israeli analyst told me, “everything is imaginable now.”

But Israel is going for broke without any political strategy. Putting faith in brute military force to restore deterrence and doubling down on confrontation with Iran and its allies without a political or strategic game plan is unlikely to change the emerging regional dynamics that so worry Israeli military planners. It is unlikely to deter the members of the “axis of resistance,” who may themselves double down in unexpected ways and surprise Israel once again.

Ending the war in Gaza would certainly help reduce the daunting threats Israel now faces, although the current round of escalation is unlikely to bring a cease-fire deal or the release of the remaining Israeli hostages any closer. But even an end to the Gaza conflict will not ultimately solve Israel’s bigger strategic dilemma. If Israel still believes that integrating itself more fully into the Middle East by striking normalization deals with its Arab neighbors will marginalize Iranian-backed extremist groups and reduce the hostility toward the country, it must come to terms with the fact that its conflict with the Palestinians constitutes its most fundamental existential threat. Impressive tactical military operations may give the illusion of victory, but only an enduring peace with the Palestinians can bring real security.