“I do not now see an existential threat to the State of Israel. If Iran were to obtain nuclear capabilities, then it would become an existential threat,” which is why Israel “must do all it can to prevent Iran” from getting to this point, he said.
While this outlook might not sound controversial, it is part of Eisenkot’s very different viewpoint on the Islamic Republic and on how to maneuver with the US against Tehran as opposed to the approach of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was prime minister during his tenure and until last month.
Eisenkot was IDF chief from 2015 to 2019, but has only recently started to come forward more forcefully about the full nuances of his views on major security challenges in areas where he could not do so as much while still wearing a uniform.
First, Eisenkot bristles at the idea that Netanyahu was the first to identify the Iranian nuclear threat, citing discussions he was involved in, without Netanyahu, at high levels more than 20 years ago on the topic.
His view would be that if Tehran does not yet present an existential threat, then publicly fighting with the US now about the different approaches the countries have to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon in the future is the wrong move.
The former IDF chief still thinks that Jerusalem must work persistently and proactively to thwart Iran’s expansionist policies in the region and its attempts to progress toward a nuclear weapon.
“Over the years, very significant [Israeli] capabilities were built, and there are substantial operations to frustrate and prevent [Iranian achievements] which have brought great [Israeli] achievements, and these need to continue,” he said.
However, Eisenkot thought it was irresponsible for Netanyahu to have a public fight with Washington over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran deal, in 2015, and thinks Netanyahu made the same mistake in recent months.
If the new government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid works more behind the scenes to try to get the Biden administration to fix some of the JCPOA’s holes, Eisenkot would likely support that approach a lot more.
Also, he seems more interested in the US-Israel dialogue helping to arrive at the right answers. In his thinking, how long to extend the JCPOA’s nuclear limits should be part of that dialogue, as opposed to dictating specifics to Washington – such as the limits must be extended for a minimum of 25 or 50 years from the current 2030 deadline.
Part of the difference in opinion in Israel could also relate to the so-called “point of no return.” Some believe that for Israel to stop an Iranian nuclear weapon, it would need to launch a preemptive strike before Tehran weaponizes its uranium to the 90% level. In contrast, Eisenkot would likely fall into the camp with former Mossad director Tamir Pardo which believes that the real point of no return is later.
Some might point out that learning how to successfully detonate and deliver a nuclear weapon is not as easy as just building a car and can take several months or longer.
In terms of having a sufficient preemptive strike option, Israel was never publicly given the US’s bunker buster bomb which only a few years ago was viewed as imperative for striking the underground nuclear facility at Fordow.
But that was before the underground facility at Natanz was sabotaged, reportedly by Israel, and before the IDF successfully used air power to destroy a wide swath of Hamas’s underground tunnels in Gaza this past May.
Eisenkot is quite confident that Jerusalem has what it takes to stop Iran, without specifying how or with what.
Relatively comfortable being lower-key than some who reach the pinnacle of a country’s military forces, the confidence he exudes on this issue is powerful.
No matter what moves the US makes regarding Iran, his view is that Israeli intelligence will need to keep a close eye on advanced centrifuges, weapons aspects of the nuclear program and inspections – all to avoid the nightmare scenario where Iran achieves a nuclear arsenal like North Korea.
The dangers of such a nightmare are not just the risk that the Islamic Republic would use a nuclear weapon, but also that Israel might be deterred from acting against Iranian proxies in the region.
Hezbollah
Tying Iran together with Hezbollah, Eisenkot discussed the unmatched more than 150,000 rocket threat which the terrorist group presents to Israel.
Tehran and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani (before the US killed him in 2020) helped Hezbollah achieve most of those capabilities, including thousands of long-range rockets and dozens or more precision-guided rockets.
Regarding Israeli efforts against the threat from Lebanon and other Iranian threats in Syria, Eisenkot said, “There were achievements and also more than a few missteps, but when we look back over 15 years, a price was paid” by Hezbollah.
The impact of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War was “that for 15 years there has been a good security situation on the Lebanese border, though at the same time Hezbollah has strengthened its capabilities,” explained Eisenkot.
Eisenkot also brought the “war between the wars” campaign of thousands of attacks to stop Iran and Hezbollah from building up a much larger arsenal of precision-guided rockets, to a new level.
He did not want to get into specifics about what would happen if there were a major war between Israel and Hezbollah. But the impression was that Israelis could spend several days in bomb shelters and the damage to Israeli physical property could be extensive – and yet the damage to Hezbollah would be at least five times more.
Even before the May war with Hamas in Gaza in which it fired over 130 rockets in around five minutes at one part of the country to partially pierce Israel’s missile shield, the IDF had warned that any future war with Hezbollah could lead to much larger casualties, sometimes tossing out numbers like 1,000 dead Israelis.
Yet Eisenkot likely believes that Israel can bomb Hezbollah at a rate of thousands per day, as opposed to the “mere” thousands per week in the war against Hamas in May.
This much more aggressive posture plus a quicker ground invasion could also bring down Hezbollah’s attack capabilities at a faster rate than with Gaza, where Israel held back.
Another key issue emphasized by Eisenkot was a major move he ordered the IDF to make near the end of his tenure, when it launched a surprise operation destroying a vast network of Hezbollah’s attack tunnels into Israel.
The former IDF chief said, “We located them 10 years late, but we dealt with and destroyed all of the attack tunnels from which thousands of [Hezbollah] fighters were meant to enter [Israel] in a surprise” invasion.
If Hezbollah had succeeded, he believed this could have been as shocking to Israel as the invasion during the Yom Kippur War.
This was a decades-long project planned by Soleimani, and he noted it as an example of the great lengths to which the joint Iran-Hezbollah axis is trying to go to do harm to the Jewish state.
Eisenkot was clearly proud that he removed that threat before his retirement, and viewed it as further deterring Hezbollah.
Hamas/Palestinian Authority
Although Hezbollah poses a far greater relative threat than Hamas, Eisenkot’s thinking is that Jerusalem can live in the long term with deterrence against the Lebanese terrorist group, more than it can with the Gazan terrorist group.
“The question is being asked, What is Israel’s strategy in the Palestinian arena? Are we going to have indirect talks [toward a long-term ceasefire], or do we see them [Hamas] as a brutal enemy that needs to be toppled?” he said.
Part of the problem, he said, is the strategy “is not clear enough in the general Palestinian arena or with Gaza specifically,” which ends up leaving the IDF, the Shin Bet and others to pick up the pieces when conflict reignites.
According to the former IDF chief, Israel and the IDF accomplished “an impressive multilayered missile defense and attacking of targets in Gaza, but there is still a need to enhance deterrence and to increase the length of periods of silence and normalcy.”
His warning was that if Hamas ever has “chemical weapons or precise weapons which reach a certain level, we will need to consider whether or not to undertake a preemptive war” against it.
Eisenkot did not want to give a set time frame for when the Jewish state might need to topple Hamas. But the sense was that he believes this would be the eventual outcome as opposed to reaching a permanent ceasefire.
Broadly, it seemed that his strategy would be to find a Palestinian Authority peace partner to work with and make general progress toward better relations on all fronts. At whatever date Israel might need to overthrow Hamas, he would coordinate with the PA and Egypt to take over Gaza so that the IDF does not get stuck there.
Like the US, he would be more optimistic about Salam Fayyad or someone of a similar status and approach leading the PA into improved relations and a possible deal with Israel in the future.
Eisenkot would oppose any further unilateral withdrawals as sending the wrong messages of weakness amid the jungle of aggressors which is the Middle East.
But he clearly thinks progress in negotiations with the PA is important to avoid the worst-case and dangerous scenario of the one-state solution which has become more popular in some circles globally.
His future is uncertain
He did not enter the political arena this last round, but at the time he also could not yet have served as a minister.
Whether speaking out publicly more on his views or a possible eventual future in politics, we have not heard the last from this IDF chief. •