On December 12, 2005 the new chief of staff, Dan Halutz, summed up intelligence assessments for 2006. In his first months in office, Halutz had focused on finalizing the plan for disengaging from Gaza and the northern parts of Samaria. This was the task he was assigned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who to this end even shortened the term of the incumbent chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, on the assumption that the latter would not toe the government’s line, which was that exiting Gaza would lead to quiet on the border. Halutz was now free to deal with other fronts.

Military Intelligence assessments about the northern front at that time were quite optimistic. In February 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had been assassinated. The killing led to widespread demonstrations, after which Syrian President Bashar Assad decided, under heavy international pressure, to evacuate his army from Lebanon. Israeli military intelligence experts were deeply impressed. This shake-up, they felt, was strong enough to bring about the division of the northern front into two separate subsidiary fronts, Syrian and Lebanese. This, they figured, would provide a chance for positive changes in the region.

The chief of staff went even one step further than the intelligence experts. In his summary of the annual assessment, Halutz determined that “Israel’s deterrence of Hezbollah is indeed effective,” particularly in light of that organization’s failure to carry out attacks on Israel. These words came only three weeks after Hezbollah failed in its bold attempt to capture Israeli soldiers in the border village of Ghajar. That attempt ended with four Hezbollah fighters being killed by a sniper from the Paratroops Brigade.

Read the full article at Haaretz.