The veteran journalist and commentator Ron Ben Yishai gave an interview explaining an article he wrote for Ynet examining why Israel has not succeeded in reconstructing the victory of the Six-Day War in any conflict since.
"Well, first of all, the important thing is to emphasize, when I say we will not win - I pointed out that we will not lose," Ben Yishai said in an interview with Erel Segal and Roi Idan on Radio 103FM. "In order for the State of Israel to win, it must do all things, or some things that will make it clear to the other side - Hezbollah, Hamas, Jihad or Iran - that it has been defeated, and that it must draw conclusions."
"The second thing is that it will make it clear to the entire world, and especially to countries in the Middle East, that Israel cannot be beaten or defeated, not even in a war of attrition, nor just in a war of occupation. But the Second Lebanon War ended in a situation in which the entire Arab world and beyond were convinced that Hezbollah had defeated Israel, not a matter of honor, but a matter of deterrence, and as a result, Hezbollah knows that it will not open fire on Israel," Ben Yishai said.
"After the Six Day War, which was a clear victory, the War of Attrition broke out. That is to say, not even that total victory created complete deterrence. Even with the fact that the Second Lebanon War was not a victory in the classic military sense, there are those who will say that it worked. In one war we won in a phenomenal manner but got the War of Attrition, and another war ends in a draw but preserves deterrence.
"It's very easy to explain. The Arabs took the Six Day War as a setback. There is the Nakba, which was the War of Independence in 1948, and the Six-Day War is perceived by them as a disaster that happened to them. And they gathered in Khartoum, and began the War of Attrition, which ended in the Yom Kippur War. And in the Yom Kippur War, our victory was much greater, and our victory there caused the Arab countries that are the most important to us - Egypt and Jordan - to sign a peace agreement that is still in force to this very day," he said.