Hezbollah is like a driver approaching an orange light, unable to decide whether to brake or accelerate. Time after time, they end up creeping into the intersection, trying to do both—only to find themselves on the wrong side of Israeli traffic when the other light turns green.
On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah was faced with two options: join in Hamas’s war on Israel, flood the Galilee with his special forces and attempt to reduce Tel Aviv to a pile of ash, or stay out of it and watch as Israel dissects its Gazan ally.
Nasrallah chose a third option: a small-scale conflict in which Hezbollah symbolically participates by lobbing the occasional missile, but never enough to incur Israel’s full wrath.
It was a great strategy in the short term. Israel felt pressed and panicked, so it reacted instead of acting, evacuating tens of thousands of its citizens from the north and keeping the conflict on a slow boil. That worked for Hezbollah until Israel decided to raise the temperature.
