Strategic Assessment

Particular dilemmas arise when a terrorist organization acts from within a sovereign state against another state. In such a case, the state under attack by the terrorist organization faces the fundamental question of who is the enemy, i.e., against whom it should direct its punitive and retaliatory actions. This article attempts to examine the dilemmas that arose in Israel in the process of defining the enemy in the Second Lebanon War. It focuses on two central issues: the discussions on defining the enemy on the eve of the war; and why this issue was not settled before the war broke out.