From the Liveblog of
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Sa’ar pans response to Hezbollah, says government letting enemies set terms of conflict
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
New Hope chairman Gideon Sa’ar slams the government for its handling of the threat posed by Hezbollah, accusing it of not doing enough to degrade the terror group’s capabilities.
“Faced with Hezbollah’s decision to fire thousands of missiles and rockets – once again the government chose the less correct strategic alternative,” he tweets — after Israeli fighter jets simultaneously struck thousands of Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon early Sunday morning in what the military said was a preemptive operation against weaponry that would have been used in a major attack on central and northern Israel.
“The choice to thwart the attack only after ten and a half months of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel is the continuation of the policy of containment. This decision has one meaning: only our enemies determine the timing and level of escalation,” he continues, appearing to argue for a wider attack on Hezbollah than the one carried out this morning.
“This opportunity should have led to a decision on an overall preemptive attack to change the reality in the north,” he declares, concluding that “whoever runs away from war will be pursued by war.”
