Deterrence Has Kept Hezbollah and Israel At Bay for 10 Years

Credible threats have preserved the peace.

As Israel and the Hezbollah prepare to mark the tenth anniversary of the Second Lebanon War—touched off by a cross-border attack in which the Lebanese organization abducted two IDF soldiers, on July 12, 2006—two senior Israeli figures have recently communicated public messages of reassurance. The first was Israel's newly appointed hawkish defense minister Avigdor Lieberman. In a tour of the Israeli-Lebanese border, on June 7, Lieberman noted, "We have no plans here other than to maintain the quiet" along the northern border. The following week, the head of IDF intelligence noted that Israel and Hezbollah were "not against another decade of quiet."...

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