Minister's Mosquito Parable as Iran Solution
Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home). (Tsachi Miri/TPS)
The following speech was delivered by Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi/Jewish Home) at The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) 2018 Conference on Wednesday in Tel Aviv. Using a simple parable, Bennett illustrated precisely why solutions for Iranian sponsored terror have been unsuccessful and what must be done to solve the problem.
“There was once a good farmer, who tirelessly worked his fields. One day he was bitten by a mosquito. He scratched the bite and moved on. And then more mosquitos and more bites followed. So he decided to take action. He bought a mosquito-swatter. Whenever a mosquito came, he’d fight it. At times he won, and other times he was bitten. Because the mosquitos persisted, he developed a special mosquito net. He surrounded his bed, and his room, and eventually his entire house, with it. Nonetheless, the mosquitos found holes and bit him and his family. Our farmer and an innovative and high-tech oriented mind, so he turned to the technological industries. At his request, they developed a device which identified mosquitos in flight and intercepted them with a small missile. But the mosquitos persisted.
The farmer sat on his balcony and wondered – what should I do? One day his older and wise father came and said, ‘Son, why don’t you dry out the swamp next to us?'” Bennett then applied his parable to the situation in the Middle East. “Ladies and gentlemen, our farmer was a great tactician; however he lacked an overall strategy. For over 30 years Iran has been sending mosquitos our way. Once from a base in Lebanon. Once from a base in Gaza. Now she’s trying to build a base in Syria.”
“And for 30 years Israel has been careful about fighting the mosquitos, the messengers: fighting Hezbollah and Hamas.” “Israel has paid a heavy price. Hundreds of soldiers have fallen in battles with the Iranian messengers. Many civilians have been killed by these messengers. In the war with Hezbollah during the 1980s and ’90s hundreds of soldiers fell. In the Second Lebanon War 121 soldiers, and 144 civilians, were killed.”
“And during this entire time, the sender in Tehran – the swamp creating the mosquitos – has been immune from paying a price. He sends the enemies to us but rests in Tehran free of concern. Israel has advanced tactics against Iran’s messengers: we’ve equipped ourselves with advanced weapons, developed the amazing Iron Dome system which has saved many lives, used precision-guided munitions, established the EGOZ unit with its special operative methodologies, and more.”
“But while our tactic responses improved, we remained locked in a narrow strategy. The strategy says: fight the messenger. Fight whoever is shooting at you. To avoid a war in the north, we must broaden our strategic scope. First, we must understand Iran’s plan. Iran’s strategy against Israel is that of an octopus strangle. What this means, is a constant strategic wrapping, tiring and strangling of Israel through proxies and messengers. It attempts to hurt our economy, our daily lives, and our patience – in order to break the Israeli public’s spirit.”
“Hasan Nasrallah (Secretary Genral of Hezbollah) explained it well in his ‘spider web’ speech. How exactly does Iran do this? The head of the octopus sits in Tehran and sends its tentacles to the areas on Israel’s periphery. One arm, as already stated, is the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Another arm is the Hamas in Gaza. Now Iran is trying to establish a third Arm in Syria using Iranian militias. We won’t let her do so.”
“The connection between the head of the octopus in Tehran and the various tentacles is not absolute. For example, Hamas is a Sunni organization and does not view itself as a complete subordinate of Tehran. The Iranian influence on Hamas depends on the people leading Hamas, their attitude towards Iran, the Iranian financial support, and other factors.” “Recently the Iranian influence on Hamas has increased, as we witnessed in the recent visit of Saleh al-Arouri, a prominent Hamas leader, in Tehran. The head of the Iranian octopus has more of an influence on Hezbollah, but it too is not complete, as we will see.
“The Iranian chain of action has four components: the sender, the distributor, the host and the messenger. So, in the Lebanese case, the sender is Iran; the distributor is the Quds Force; the host is Lebanon; and the messenger actively attacking Israel is Hezbollah. In Gaza: the sender, again, is Iran; the distributor – the Quds Force; the host is Gaza; and the messenger Hamas. In Syria: the sender and distributor are, as usual, Iran and the Quds Force; the host is Syria and the messengers are Iranian militias.”
“In the face of this octopus strategy, Israel has focused for 30 years on fighting the messengers. We have barely touched the hosts. We have not dealt at all with the distributor or sender. During the 1990s, when we fought in Southern Lebanon, we fought Hezbollah. As a company commander, I led a series of missions to take out key Hezbollah leaders, and I saw a constant improvement in our abilities. Yet the framework always remained a fight against one arm of the octopus.”
“From the 1990s till the 2000s we specialized in hunting rocket launchers, while Hezbollah grew in sophistication over time. At first, Hezbollah launched missiles from open areas, and we did a good job destroying them. In the second phase, Hezbollah hid the launchers in overgrown areas, which we nicknamed ‘nature reserves.’ This required us physically arriving at the site to destroy the launchers, like in the battles of Marun a-Ras, which was a battle with lots of friction and casualties. In the third phase, Hezbollah did a good job of planting the rockets in homes, turning dozens of villages in South Lebanon to missile launching bases. The houses now have a kitchen, a living room, a parents’ room, a children’s bedroom and a rocket room. Hezbollah did this knowing Israel would not target civilian-populated areas.
Today we can say: there is no surgical way to destroy rocket launchers within houses, without collateral damage. There is no tweezer technology. I saw this at the start of the Second Lebanon War while commanding, once again, a search and destroy mission in the western parts of South Lebanon, not far from Debel. Our mission, to stop the firing of rockets into Israel, was impossible. Yes, we had successes, but could not stop the massive firing into Israel. Not because the IDF forces aren’t capable – but because you cannot arrive physically at each and every launch site. The messenger, Hezbollah, is well embedded in the host, Lebanon. It’s very hard to hit the ‘needle’ – Hezbollah – in the haystack of Lebanon.”
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