“Until now, Israel has been willing to go to war either when it anticipated that its enemies were on the verge of attacking – as in 1967 – or to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear capability, as it did when it attacked the reactors in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007. In both of those cases, presumably the defense establishment was prepared for the possibility that the strikes would lead to a full-fledged war.

Thankfully, they did not.

This basically means that until now, Israel has been willing to tolerate a military buildup by its enemies, with a nuclear capability serving as the “red line.” However, with the threats coming out of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv over the past week, it seems the line might be moving up to chemical weapons or even to advanced and conventional missile systems that Syria could transfer to Hezbollah.

Why would these systems make a difference for Israel? With chemical weapons, the answer seems obvious – Israel fears that Hezbollah, a terrorist group, would use these weapons of mass destruction against it.”

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