Bad money, good money
If Hezbollah was at level 100 on October 6, 2023, it reached the ceasefire on November 27, 2024 at roughly level 20. And its condition at the end of 2025? A slight improvement — somewhere around 25.
In the first two months after the war ended, Hezbollah was unable to staff platoon- and company-level command positions. The blow to its firepower capabilities was not only physical but systemic: the concept of dispersing and concealing the rocket and missile array collapsed. The same applies to the Radwan Force, which will not be able to storm northern communities due to the new buffer zone and the destruction of its bases in Shiite villages near the border.
The time since has therefore been used for rethinking. One conclusion is not to respond to Israeli strikes. In Israel this is interpreted as weakness on the part of an organization that for years deterred Israel and operated in Lebanon as if it owned the place. That is the truth — but not the whole truth. Hezbollah also refrains from responding because it understands that at the end of each week it is still stronger than it was the week before. So why give Israel a pretext for a broader attack?
An Israeli strike in Lebanon. Photo: AFP.
Weakening Hezbollah is only one side of the equation. The other is strengthening the Lebanese state. Israel excels at doing its part, but it will never be able to eliminate the organization on its own. The reason for Lebanon’s weakness is Lebanese trauma. The Israeli “never again” is the Holocaust; the Lebanese equivalent, by contrast, is the civil war that destroyed the state. Hezbollah’s threat of war is deterrent enough. What threatens the Lebanese are Kalashnikovs, not rockets — and those the IDF cannot destroy.
So what is to be done? The story is also a race between bad money and good money. In the year since the ceasefire, despite efforts to block it, a billion dollars smuggled by Iran has nevertheless entered Lebanon, all of it devoted to rebuilding Hezbollah. And the good money? A quarter of a billion Western dollars has reached the country, but it is locked in a special fund that will be released only once anti-corruption conditions are met. At present, for example, the Lebanese army can operate only half its forces at any given time. Earning starvation wages of about $100, most soldiers work week-on, week-off — in the army and on side jobs — just to survive. Raise their salaries, and force strength would double overnight. If the United States and its regional allies want to close the story, they need to open their wallets.
An alliance of interests
The product at the heart of the dispute over the investigation into the October 7 failure is not the commission of inquiry. The product is time. We are rapidly approaching the moment — if it has not already arrived — when the conclusions of any commission will become irrelevant, when the investigative material will be completely contaminated.
One aspect, the most dramatic of all, has already been neutralized: personal conclusions. Of all the senior officials in the system on the morning of the massacre, only one remains in office — Benjamin Netanyahu. Fate would have it that he is also the only one against whom personal conclusions cannot be determined. A commission can rule that someone may not serve as defense minister, because the authority to appoint and dismiss lies with the prime minister. It can rule that someone may not serve as chief of staff, because the authority lies with the defense minister. But it cannot order the Knesset to dismiss a prime minister. Anyone who doubts this should ask Ariel Sharon, whom a state commission of inquiry barred from serving as defense minister — only for him to later become prime minister. The commission that will be formed will be able to impose personal conclusions about as effectively as the famous commission Menachem Begin established for the Arlosoroff murder affair almost fifty years earlier.
One may agree with Likud’s criticism of the complete politicization of the Supreme Court in general and of its current president in particular. According to a Jewish People Policy Institute poll published this week, only 21% support Chief Justice Amit alone appointing the members. But it is very difficult to agree with the solution they propose: an even more political commission. If the opposition agrees to appoint half the members, the commission will turn into a Knesset committee, complete with heckling and zero substance. If they refuse, the Speaker of the Knesset will appoint all the members. Is a politician less political than the president of the Supreme Court?
MK Ariel Kallner is considering interim solutions, such as having the state comptroller or the president of the Supreme Court appoint half the members if the opposition refuses. It is doubtful that salvation will come from there.
The correct solution was and remains that the president of the Supreme Court waive his honor and entrust the formation of the commission to Deputy President Solberg, who enjoys far greater public trust. This is the scenario Netanyahu fears most, since the judge is likely to appoint an independent commission — and such a commission is likely to determine who is responsible. Fortunately for him, he has a partner in fierce opposition to this scenario: the president of the Supreme Court himself. Heaven forbid he acknowledge the problem he has with broad segments of the public and attempt to fix it. If he does, from that moment on he would be a president on probation.
There is an old saying that history writes straight with crooked lines. An example? The Yom Kippur War led to the political upheaval and the right’s rise to power. And yet it was that very right which brought about a complete withdrawal from Sinai, down to the last centimeter — far to the left of the platform of the preceding left-wing government. The public wanted an agreement with Egypt, but subconsciously preferred that it be carried out by the hawks of Likud, not the doves of the Alignment.
A fascinating article by Professor Amir Goldstein, published in the equally fascinating book “To the Right of Zionism” edited by Avi Shilon, argues that the withdrawal should not have surprised anyone. In the years after the war, Begin shifted leftward under public pressure. The public wanted to remove the Alignment but feared its opposition to agreements with Arab states. In response, even before the 1973 elections, the Likud leader accused the Alignment of presiding over repeated wars and bloodshed. He sent his number two, MK Bader, to publish an article titled “Who Said No Retreat,” stating that the movement was not in principle opposed to withdrawal from Sinai and the Golan.
Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Photo: Yaakov Saar / GPO
Begin himself was forced in 1974 to propose a “plan for peace and security” that included three years of ceasefire with Arab states. He ironically referred to himself as a “warmonger for peace.” When a party activist called for withdrawal from Sinai, he was heckled with cries of “What about Jabotinsky?” Begin replied coolly: “Sir, for a hundred days in Sinai I do not hear about Jabotinsky; I hear about life in this country.”
Likud’s platform ahead of the 1977 elections already included an explicit promise: “Within Sinai the border will be set between Egypt and Israel, and on the Golan Heights the border will be set between Syria and Israel.” Still, one cannot do without attacking the left, so Begin railed against the Communist Party for being “ready to abandon all of Sinai” — something he himself would do two years later.
“It is precisely in a change of government that the chance for peace lies,” he said at the time. The media’s conception was that it heard Begin’s double talk — one voice for the base and one for the swing voters — but chose to believe the hawkish one.
From historical parable to contemporary lesson: if after Yom Kippur ’73 the public moved left while growing tired of left-wing rule, after Simchat Torah ’23 the public is moving right while raging against right-wing rule. The opposition parties are discovering, as Begin once did, that to translate anger into an upheaval it is not enough to point to the failure itself — they will need to abandon decades-old ideology. And so Lapid embarrasses Netanyahu’s government by approving a law to apply sovereignty; Gantz votes against the establishment of a Palestinian state; Eisenkot attacks Netanyahu for agreeing to two states; and Golan scolds the government for excessive hesitation in the war against Hezbollah.
Are the interpretations, as in the 1970s, missing the sharp turn to the right and treating it as mere campaign theatrics? And might the politicians of the “Anyone But Bibi” bloc find themselves in a government taking steps even more radical than Netanyahu’s? His position was strong enough to end the war while Hamas was still standing and not apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. What about theirs?
Ballad for a aouble agent
The decision to recruit Eli Feldstein to the Prime Minister’s Office was made by Jonatan Urich. In the second week of October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu had slightly more urgent matters on his mind than hiring an assistant spokesman. But the general direction was clear: someone who would speak with the military correspondents through a semi-official channel, based on the assumption that if there is 100 percent responsibility for the failure, then the larger the share that falls on the chief of staff’s shoulders, the less will weigh on the prime minister’s.
Feldstein was, ostensibly, the perfect candidate: well-connected in the IDF, with astonishing familiarity with the internal politics of the senior officer corps, knowing exactly where the information caches were hidden that would continue to trouble the chief of staff for a long time. It was no accident that senior General Staff officials were alarmed when they heard of his appointment.
Journalists not knowing until the affair exploded that they were being fed Qatari messages is one thing. No less intriguing is the fact that deep into the war, many of us did not know that Feldstein was working for the Prime Minister’s Office at all. The employment arrangement was crooked in substance and defective in its paperwork.
Jonatan Urich. Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon
Urich paid the full price for this employment. After several days of shifting explanations, he produced a shocking version: the money I received in the chain from Qatar was a substitute for payment from the Prime Minister’s Office, with Urich’s knowledge. That was the moment the affair threatened to shake Netanyahu’s position. After all, if his ties with Qatar are so close that it functions as his petty cash fund, the implication is that fanatic messaging is influencing national security inside the Prime Minister’s Office.
That version collapsed long ago and finally died this week with the publication of Feldstein’s correspondence by Avishai Grinzaig. This was not a fictitious employment by Netanyahu but a deal between the adviser and Qatar: money in exchange for PR. The question is Urich’s knowledge. The entire argument that he was “in the loop” inside the office (not during the 2022 World Cup) rests on a single refined phrase — “shitting cubes” — which he used in response to a text from Feldstein containing a briefing that helped Qatar. The slang term means something approximating “ok, got it”. More will be required to tie him to the dark deal. He will also be required to explain, in parallel, whether he worked for Qatar abroad during the war as alleged — a claim his associates deny.
The most fascinating figure in the affair is Urich, not Feldstein. He is the adviser behind the move that turned Netanyahu, in the eyes of his voters, into the leader of a movement, and he is signed onto a record of six election campaigns with thirty mandates or more. Urich exits them with three indictments, in what appears to be targeted treatment by law enforcement: the Filber harassment affair, the Bild leak, and Qatargate. These proceedings will conclude in the mid-2030s, while in the meantime he is barred from contact with Netanyahu and can at most work within the Likud. Does anyone know a way to run a prime-ministerial candidate by telepathy?
His temporary departure coincides with Ron Dermer’s permanent exit. When people talk about Netanyahu’s inner circle, these two were his environment: one handled the diplomatic flank for the prime minister, the other the communications front. Netanyahu is entering a year of diplomatic decisions and a political election year without either of them. One is in business, not answering the phone; the other is under investigation, unable to call.
