Liberman slams decision to ‘contain’ attack

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman writes on his Facebook page that “containing the incident [along the northern border yesterday] means Israel agrees to these ‘rules of the game’ and the prices they come with. This causes serious damage to Israel capabilities of deterrence.”

“Those who say we should ‘contain’ the event and wait,” Liberman says in apparent criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu, “actually imply that Hezbollah can be allowed to build up its capabilities also along our border with Syria and bring large quantities of terrorists and ammunition that will be able to harm us at any given moment.”

Liberman points to the summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza as an example of bad deterrence: “Only this week we saw the missile test by Hamas and in the weeks before that we saw the parades where Hamas showcased the advanced weapons they are building against Israel. This is not deterrence but burying your head in the sand. This is exactly the result I opposed in Operation Protective Edge and today we see how Hezbollah, after years during it which it really was deterred by the hits it sustained in the Second Lebanon War, we see how this deterrence was shattered because of what [Hezbollah] saw happen in Operation Protective Edge.”