The pioneering obliteration doctrine was first outlined in 2005 by Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military commander. Interestingly, he is not an extremist. He subsequently became an influential politician who supports democracy and a two-state solution for the creation of a Palestinian state. But as a military strategist, he opened a Pandora’s Box that both Israel’s right-wing Likud and Messianic far-right would subsequently embrace. Two decades ago, Eisenkot’s strategy was based on the idea that the Israeli military would have to severely damage the Beirut suburb of Dahiya to create effective deterrence against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The assumption was that the deployment of disproportionate power would end Hezbollah for good, or at least for a sustained period. When the Israeli military embraced what came to be known as the Dahiya Doctrine, the Cold War was history, and ad hoc international criminal tribunals had been set up.