(INN).Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, former head of the National Security Council, says that the recent skirmish in Lebanon that exacted the price of one dead officer and another seriously wounded one must serve as a general warning bell: “Wars have to be fought in order to win.”
“Our immediate response of firing back at the Lebanese forces who attacked us on Monday was correct,” Dayan told Arutz-7’s Benny Tucker. “But there must be a more comprehensive military response as well. Over the course of just a few days, we had rockets from Gaza at Sderot, rockets into Eilat, and now the incident in Lebanon. It’s clear that this was not just a coincidence - and our response must be carried out accordingly.”
“Clearly, our deterrence is still strong, and that’s why Hamas sends others to do their work [such as with the rockets to Eilat], and the like... The same in Lebanon: I don't believe that the incident there was the result of one anonymous Lebanese officer. I’m certain it was part of a wider initiative – and that’s why our response must be across-the-board.”
“Our response need not be immediate,” Dayan said. “We must wait for the right time, and then strike back hard.”
Dayan is critical of UN Resolution 1701 – the ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. “1701 has not produced the goods for us,” he said. He added that Israel's leaders at the time (Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whom he did not mention by name) “very much wanted to show that we had won the war, and 1701 was their proof. But the fact is that it has not succeeded, and certainly does nothing to solve the open borders between Syria and Lebanon… We may have thought that the Lebanese was not our enemy [and that our only enemy was Hizbullah], but that's not true."
“You can’t solve everything with force – but you have to know how to use your force. I hope that next time, we will make sure to complete the job, and in Gaza as well. In war, you have to go all the way; limited results are not good enough. You can’t waste time like we did in the Lebanon War, when we waited a few weeks and then ran a strong ground offensive which we didn’t even get to finish; you have to do that at the beginning."
"In addition," Dayan added, "we have to go after the leadership of Hamas and Hizbullah, and destroy them. In Lebanon, not a single Hizbullah leader was hurt."
“It’s true that [if we fight hard] there is likely to be an investigative committee and the like, but that will happen in any event. The world likes those who win – and then there will also be less diplomatic activity against us.”