Barak Slams Netanyahu’s Lebanon Strategy: ’Utter Failure’
By Staff, Agencies
Former "Israeli" Prime Minister Ehud Barak sharply criticized the "Israeli" occupation entity’s Lebanon policy, calling it an “utter failure” and accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritizing political survival over national security.
In a searing op-ed for Haaretz, Barak painted a grim picture of the ongoing war, stating that the "Israeli" occupation forces [IOF] are “fighting with their hands tied” to maintain a security "buffer zone" and warning that the failure to counter drone threats years after they first emerged constitutes a “shameful failure".
“The army is fighting with its hands tied to maintain a security belt that keeps anti-tank missiles away from targeting settlements and makes it difficult for drones to move; the failure to find a solution to confront them, years after they appeared, is a shameful failure,” Barak wrote.
He noted that developing solutions to these threats “will take many long weeks, and even then, they will be costly and partial.”
The nearly daily toll, he added, “which is permitted for publication, and the constant danger to soldiers in the field, are causing feelings of deep frustration among field commanders and the public.”
Barak directly challenged Netanyahu’s previous claims of victory, writing, “A year and a half has passed since the ceasefire that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, after which he said he had set Hezbollah back decades… What hollow arrogance.”
According to Barak, all the so-called “achievements”, including the terrorist pager attack, the targeting of martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders, and strikes on the Radwan Force, missile systems, and their operators, “have evaporated as if they never were.”
Under the leadership of Sheikh Naim Qassem, “who was marketed to the public as a helpless man,” Barak argued, Hezbollah remains “alive and kicking," striking the Israeli military and northern settlements and showing no sign of collapse or willingness to disarm.
“Summarizing the situation in Lebanon from the prime minister’s perspective in one word: failure. In two words: absolute failure,” Barak wrote.
Barak further warned against “dangerous illusions”, specifically the linkage between “eliminating Hezbollah once and for all” and “removing constraints in Lebanon,” stating that destroying Hezbollah would require a full occupation of Lebanon, “which is utterly impractical.”
“The illusion that military pressure will eliminate Hezbollah and that only loss of territory will convince it to lay down its arms, leading to a policy of leveling land in villages and towns as in Gaza, is foolishness,” he wrote.
In a striking passage, Barak argued that destroying villages “restores legitimacy to what Hezbollah insists on, that it is the only force protecting Lebanon from Israel. In doing so, we are helping Hezbollah in its struggle against the Lebanese government and its domestic opponents. We are helping it, not harming it.”
Barak accused Netanyahu of having “repeatedly failed opportunities for political paths on the Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria fronts” due to “considerations of Netanyahu’s political and personal survival.”
He added that settlers “have been abandoned by a fossilized government, which repeatedly succumbs to Haredi extortion and gives priority to settlement in the West Bank,” noting that northern settlers understand that the 13 billion shekels promised to them “is nothing but ink on paper.”
Barak concluded his article with a blunt assessment, “There is no chance of progress until Netanyahu is removed from his chair.”
