The Arab world is certain: Israel settled accounts with Hezbollah - that was its historic mistake

A Lebanese commentary analyzes the fall of Ali Taher hill to Israel as a symbol of Hezbollah's strategic shift. The writer argues that the organization learned too late that sometimes preserving power is more important than preserving territory, and that this logic should have guided it from the start of the campaign in October 2023, instead of being dragged into a costly war that eroded its strength.

A Lebanese commentary published in a Lebanese media outlet analyzes the fall of Ali Taher hill to Israel as a strategic turning point for Hezbollah. The writer argues that the organization learned too late that sometimes preserving power is more important than preserving territory, and that this logic should have guided it from the start of the campaign in October 2023. The commentary presents a central paradox: Hezbollah's deterrence relies on power, but extensive and sustained use of that power erodes it, thereby undermining the deterrence itself. The writer claims that Hezbollah bet that Israel would conclude that the cost of continuing the war was too high, but this bet was based on the false assumption that the Israeli side was equally interested in avoiding a prolonged war. The actual result was the opposite: Israel gained a much wider operational space for strikes and movement in southern Lebanon. The commentary ends with a question: if the logic of preserving power is correct today, why did Hezbollah need such a costly war to reach a conclusion that could have been adopted from day one?