Israel has two concepts at the core of their defense strategy that are now in conflict with each other.

Both are due to being significantly more militarily powerful than any one of their neighbors for about 50-70 years now.

Since their stunning victory in the 6-day war in the 60s, their military concept has been based on being much more powerful than any one enemy, and being able to defeat enemies one by one (“defeat in detail”) rather than taking on all their enemies at once.

Firstly, Israel always massively overreacts. As a rule and intentionally. Kidnap 300 hostages, they kill 45,000, raze your city, and starve 2 million. Massively disproportionate and that’s the point. You scratch them, they murder your entire family. The rationale being you will think twice before scratching them, even if they’re stealing your home.

Secondly, Israel wants to avoid multiple conflicts at once. Their strategy of massively over-reacting to being scratched works best when they can bring their full might against one enemy at a time. If they have to take on two enemies, then their ability to wipe out their foe is halved. So at all costs they want to avoid more than one conflict at a time. Note how they’re somewhat putting the brakes on Gaza now that the Iranian conflict is gaining steam.

These two concepts rely on Israel being much stronger than any one or even any two or three of their opponents which for our entire lives and likely our parents entire lives that has been true.

The decline of the unipolar world order and the rise of the Russia-China entente means having Uncle Sam in your corner no longer guarantees that you’re the strongest player in town.

And the emergence of the “axis of resistance” means Israel isn’t as easily able to take on one enemy at a time because the other players in the region have gotten wise to the fact that if they face Israel 1 by 1, like bad guys in a Kung Fu movie, they will likely lose. So they’re cooperating. They’re often simply described as “Iranian proxies” in the western media but this isn’t accurate, they aren’t mere puppets but rather a group of state and quasi-state actors whose ideologies and interests are closely aligned and who therefore find they’re able to easily cooperate and coordinate. Hezbollah is closely allied with Iran but they don’t take orders from Iran. It’s more like NATO. France doesn’t directly take orders from the USA but obviously the US is the senior partner, likewise Hezbollah are not under Iranian control but Iranian generals play a coordinating role.

Israel is facing a shifting world order where Iran’s de facto alliance with Russia and China and Iran’s domestic military capabilities make it a very serious player.

Israel is facing a world where instead of being able to regularly beat up the local threats by invading Lebanon or Gaza in rotation every five years to “mow the grass” and “preemptively” destroy threats by killing all the young men, now those groups are beginning to coordinate to prevent Israel from simply rotating between them.

When Hezbollah comes to help Hamas by shelling northern Israel, Israel’s geopolitical fundamental of massive overreaction demands that Israel now absolutely smashes Hezbollah.

But Israel’s geopolitical fundamental of taking on enemies one at a time demands they focus on Hamas first and come for Hezbollah later.

When Iran gives Yemen intel and supplies weapons to Hezbollah, overreaction demands they strike Iran but if they’re fighting Hamas and Hezbollah then their doctrine demands they can’t focus on Iran.

Additionally, they just don’t have the power to take on Hamas, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran at the same time. Israel is strong but they aren’t that strong. But since the geopolitical world order is shifting and the power of the US empire is declining, they also see that their window of opportunity for taking on Iran is closing.

They have these competing and outright conflicting geopolitical doctrines and geopolitical interests which is leading to this chaotic mix of responses.

When they say a caged animal is the most dangerous, this is why. Fear and aggression mix and conflict, resulting in dangerous unpredictability.

How it’s played out here:

Israel absolutely cannot afford a direct fight with Iran, but Israel cannot afford to allow itself to be seen to not react or under react to Iran scratching it, else it permanently loses the carefully cultivated deterrence value of being known to always massively overreact that sits at the heart of its defense doctrine and national self-image.

So they strike Syria and Iraq instead of striking Iran.

The doctrine of taking on one enemy at a time demands they avoid striking Iran. But the doctrine of always over reacting resulted in them taking on multiple more enemies instead.

Doctrinal chaos is making them panic. Fight or flight response meaning they flee from a fight with Iran while picking a fight with the weaker friends of Iran.

Doctrinal confusion between wanting to massively respond to the Hezbollah threat while avoiding a fight with Hezbollah resulted in conflicting reflexes and so they targeted the Iranian generals coordinating the groups.

In summary -

They desperately want to avoid fighting all these groups but their fundamental military demand is to massively overreact to any threat. So now that these groups are coordinating they are experiencing doctrinal panic and striking everyone in a limited way as a unworkable and geopolitically bipolar compromise between wanting to strike all their enemies at once while wanting to avoid fighting all their enemies at once.