Israel’s attack on pagers belonging to Hezbollah on Tuesday was a tactical success that had no clear strategic impact, analysts say.While it embarrassed Hezbollah and appeared to incapacitate many of its members, the attack has not so far altered the military balance along the Israel-Lebanon border, where more than 100,000 civilians on either side have been displaced by a low-intensity battle. Hezbollah and the Israeli military remained locked in the same pattern, exchanging missiles and artillery fire on Wednesday at a tempo in keeping with the daily skirmishes fought between the sides since October.
We've seen this in the past - the media makes up a goal and then say Israel didn't achieve it.
We of course don't know the details of the attack. Reports that Israel decided to explode the devices now because they were about to be discovered sound plausible, because the timing does not seem to be optimal.
But whatever Israel's plans were, the attack accomplished a great deal.
Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran spend a lot of time on psychological warfare. They have correctly identified public opinion as no less important than physical strength, and in many ways it is more important. Hamas' October 7 strategy was based in great part on expected world pressure to stop any Israeli retaliation. Similarly, its release of hostage videos and use of social media bots also points to a strategic goal of dividing up and weakening Israeli society.
This operation, if nothing else, had a profound psychological effect on Israel's enemies and others.
It increases paranoia. Israel must have infiltrated multiple layers of Hezbollah in order to pull this off, as well as its other assassination operations. Every Hezbollah member must spend more time looking over his shoulders and wondering whether the person they work with is a spy - and less time planning attacks on Israel.
More importantly, it destroys an important part of Hezbollah's C3 (command, control, and communications) network. If Hezbollah cannot use electronic means to communicate, it is a major blow to their operations.
It sends a message to all of Israel's enemies. They like to claim that they are planning "surprises" against Israel, but this was a real surprise no one could see coming.
It sends a message to the Arab world as a whole. While Iran and Hezbollah make daily threats of massive imminent attacks, Israel quietly and without taking responsibility actually does them. It causes fear among Israel enemies, but respect among the larger Arab world.
Do not underestimate the psychological effect in the Arab world of Israel effectively castrating hundreds or thousands of its enemies.
And on the flip side, Hezbollah and Iran look weak, disorganized, and to be liars, something that the larger Arab community notes and remembers.
People like to say that "Hamas is an idea, you cannot kill an idea." Besides being false to begin with, do you think that an attack like this will encourage more recruits to Hezbollah and Hamas or scare more of them away? Do they want to risk their testicles?
Hezbollah's vows of revenge do not have much of a bite now.
On a larger scale, this attack increases Israel's prestige in the larger Arab world. You can be sure that Gulf nations are more likely to want to be allies with Israel after this, and less likely to want to be enemies.
Moreover, the attack proves that Israel only targets terrorists, not civilians. Hezbollah is trying to release propaganda to claim otherwise, but everyone sees through that.
Perhaps Israel intended to time this attack in an initial invasion of Lebanon. But even without perfect timing, this was an unqualified success whose benefits will be seen in the months and years to come.
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