BEIRUT—In early December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again peeled back the last veneer of diplomatic pretence. 

Addressing Israeli ambassadors on December 7, Netanyahu proudly recalled his declaration—made just one day after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood—that the Israeli overarching strategic ambition was nothing short of “reshaping the Middle East.” 

The path, Netanyahu explained, required the sequential elimination of Hamas, Hezbollah, and ultimately Iran. 

This is the real timeline—not the fabricated narratives pushed by Lebanon’s “Israel Support Front,” those domestic propagandists parroting the claim that Hezbollah “dragged Lebanon into war.”

Netanyahu’s own words expose this talking point for what it is: fiction designed to mask Israeli escalation as Lebanese provocation.

“The question was whether to attack Lebanon or focus on Gaza. We did not want to sink into two quagmires. So we kept Lebanon under active deterrence, destroyed Hamas’s military capabilities, and then planned to turn north,” Netanyahu said.

Additional revelations from inside the Israeli establishment dismantle the myth further. On December 8, Yedioth Ahronoth—via a detailed report by military correspondent Yoav Zitun—confirmed that the Southern Command had presented a comprehensive plan for a pre-emptive offensive against Gaza in 2022. 

The operation included assassinating top Hamas leaders, demolishing production sites, and launching a brief ground incursion aimed at crippling the resistance’s rocket infrastructure.
Why was the operation shelved? Because the Israeli military and political leadership were prioritizing preparations for a large-scale confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran.

Gaza was ordered to remain “quiet at any price” until the northern front was ready.

Further testimony collected by the committee led by Gen. (res.) Sami Turgeman revealed that Israel had operational plans to assassinate Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar in the two years prior to the war. 

These operations were repeatedly postponed—not out of restraint, but to avoid igniting a major conflict before the northern campaign was fully synchronized.
Simply put: the Israeli enemy set the clock, the battlegrounds, and the sequence of targets long before October 7. Lebanon was always next!

Despite this mountain of evidence—public, documented, and acknowledged by Israeli commanders themselves—Lebanon’s pro-Israel propagandists continue their recycled refrain that Hezbollah somehow “pulled Lebanon into conflict.” 

What conflict, exactly, when Israel itself announced its intention to attack Lebanon, prepared for that attack, postponed other operations to prioritize it, and openly broadcast its strategic timeline!?

Their argument collapses the moment it encounters facts. Even more delusional is their insistence on selling the fantasy of “peace” with the Israeli enemy. 

Netanyahu shattered this illusion himself. His strategy is not to coexist with Lebanon but to neutralize it—politically, militarily, and territorially. 
For Tel Aviv, “peace” is merely a PR slogan masking a long-term project of domination.

Hezbollah’s involvement in the current confrontation is not what triggered war; it is what prevented Israel from executing its preplanned northern blitz. 

The Resistance’s deterrence posture—sharpened over years of accumulated capability—is the only factor that forced Israel to rethink its timing, pace, and cost calculations.

Without that deterrence, the northern assault Netanyahu described would not be a hypothetical future phase. It would already be underway.

The Israeli enemy’s own confessions erase any ambiguity: Israel wanted this war; Israel prepared this war; and Israel scheduled this war.

The single miscalculation was Israel’s enduring underestimation of the Resistance—its endurance, its strategy, and its ability to expose both Israeli aggression and the hollow narratives spread by those who speak on the enemy’s behalf.