Does Israeli Intelligence Understand Hezbollah?

Does Israeli Intelligence Understand Hezbollah?

Hezbollah, Israel, Shebaa, military operation, Israeli intelligence, Amos Yadlin, Lebanese,
The recent military operation in Shebaa, and Hezbollah statement of responsibility for it, posed questions and tested again the templates that shape the Israeli intelligence assessment towards Hezbollah. If the operation itself had indications that urge Israel to think long about them, rapid announcement of the operation by Hezbollah would have broader and more comprehensive indications.
Has Israel underestimated intentions, specifically the one to respond to attacks inside Lebanon?
Definitely yes. Underestimation is undebatable in Israel. The debate is focused on whether the intentions of Hezbollah would be expanded to more than a respond, and then a respond to a respond, leading to a broader military confrontation.
Major General Amos Yadlin, former head of military intelligence and acting chief of Center for National Security Studies, warned in a radio interview, two days ago, the intelligence service from committing the mistake of prior templates. He called for the need to work to avoid crucial estimates, and specifically toward Hezbollah, because the error of underestimation in the Lebanese arena is much different than in other arenas.
Yadlin pointed out that Israel should be aware of committing a mistake of another kind, i.e. miscalculations regarding events and operations called "positional incidents", because they would be escalated towards a broader and more comprehensive military confrontation, even if both parties - Hezbollah and Israel - have no intention to initiate it.
From this point, Hezbollah response in Shebaa Farms did not only drop the equation which Israel wanted as well as its estimated template, but also revealed shortcomings of the Israeli intelligence in understanding Hezbollah decision-making mechanism, its logic and its vision. The response (Shebaa operation) is an extension of the many previous stations which proved that Hezbollah surprises Israel, either by the action and reaction themselves, the timing or the style.

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