Starting the War
Georgia/South Ossetia was anything but quiet. There had been skirmishes since the 1992-93 war, and small arms fire and sporadic shelling in the weeks before 7 August. Georgia claims Russian soldiers and armored vehicles, in place ahead of time, entered South Ossetia on the 7th, escalating the situation and causing Georgia to end its self-declared cease fire. Russia says the troops arrived on the 8th in response to Georgian attacks. Now a team from the OSCE says Georgia, in fact, started the war. "If there had been any (Russian) provocations, the response from the Georgian side was disproportionate."
The nature of the report has implications for Israel.
What are the obligations of a small country facing ongoing aggressive behavior from a larger or more powerful one? How long does it have to be threatened - even if its enemy doesn't cross the border - before it can strike to protect itself? Before the 1967 War, Israel watched the Egyptian buildup in the Sinai and the rabid fury of Egyptian crowds calling for the annihilation of the Jews. In 1973, Israel knew Syria was preparing for an attack and the IDF sought permission to strike first. Then-Prime Minister Golda Meir said "No," preferring to absorb the first blow to ensure that the United States (and others) would not brand Israel the aggressor, costing it necessary political support. Soldiers paid with their lives for that decision and Israel came close at points to losing the war.
Today, Israel faces both a war of attrition and a potentially existential threat. Israel has responded to both, thus far, with restraint, begging the question, "for how long?"
Hamas, with support from Iran, is shelling Israel with increasingly large and accurate weapons; Ashkelon, with more than 100,000 people is in range. When the JINSA Flag & General Officers trip visited IDF commanders in the South and leadership in Tel Aviv, they were told that at some point, large-scale Israeli ground action would become inevitable. "Iran in Gaza is unacceptable." Several IDF officials recalled that the Passover Seder bombing in 2003 precipitated the Israeli entry into Jenin to wipe out the strongholds of suicide bombers in the "second intifada," implying that only an attack with large-scale casualties would induce a major Israeli response. So Israel responds as it can to Hamas shelling of civilian neighborhoods, waiting for things to become "bad enough" before it accepts the label of "aggressor" with a "disproportionate" response.
Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities and threatening Israel with genocide. The "international community" has been singularly unsuccessful in slowing or stopping Iran's progression. Israel (and the United States) has made it clear that the "military option" remains on the table, but the decision to exercise it will be made only when all other options are exhausted - in part because if Israel fires first, no matter how verbally belligerent Iran has been and no matter how close to nuclear weapons capability it has come, Israel would be the aggressor if, like the Georgians, it fired first.
So Israel waits. If it responds to provocation too soon, it runs the risk of being Georgia. If it waits too long, it runs the risk of something else.
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