Fast Draw: Weak Israeli Response to Lebanese Border Incident

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How convenient. Israel accepted the Lebanese version, according to which Shlomi Cohen, a 31 year-old IDF NCO from Afula, was killed by a Lebanese soldier acting on his own.

The media also readily adopted the Lebanese story, and the Israeli government didn’t deny it as well. Israel delivered a formal protest to the Lebanese government and the United Nations, but the incident will probably not result in a wide-scale escalation.

The shooting occurred at about eight thirty p.m. Cohen was driving along the Lebanese border security fence, at the time several dozens of meters east of an IDF outpost at Rosh Hanikra. Six or seven shots were fired at the vehicle from a light weapon, possibly from a relatively short range. IDF lookouts noticed several armed figures on the other side of the border, most likely – according to IDF assessments – Lebanese soldiers rather than Hezbollah fighters. The Israeli army didn’t respond immediately.

IHLS – Israel Homeland Security

There’s a suspiciously high number of these “independently-acting” soldiers posted along the borders. Israel protests every hostile act but does nothing. That’s not how you prevent the next “lone wolf”, that’s not how you create deterrence. The main problem isn’t the Lebanese army, it may actually manage to control it’s “crazy” soldiers eventually. But how does that look to Hezbollah? They’ll think that it’s okay to shoot an IDF soldier once in a while without risking an Israeli response. They also have their share of “crazies”, probably.

That’s not the only problem. Who exactly sent one soldier, alone, patrolling along the Lebanese border in his private car? That’s a Hezbollah-infested zone, so how does that happen, exactly?