WI: Israel Defeats Hezbollah in 2006

The title is pretty self-explanatory; what does it take to accomplish it and what are the butterflies?

I don't see an Israeli victory as especially hard to bring about. IOTL, as good as they were, Hezbollah to a large extent had caught lightning in a bottle and had an awful lot of lucky breaks. They had a long string of spectacular intelligence successes that was unlikely to be repeated, managed to land a lot of lucky missile strikes, benefited from timely UN intervention (particularly in terms of reports on troop movements), and happened upon an egregiously unprepared IDF (i.e. the direct torpedo hit from a pocket sub on one of the Israeli navy's capitol ships because their radar system was turned off).

None of this doesn't mean that Hez didn't earn every bit of its victory in the summer of '06, because obviously it did (man for man it was certainly better than the IDF, with much better training, discipline, and motivation), but the odds were heavily against it. Israeli forces fought very hard and were better armed, their air force dropped tons of bombs, they significantly outnumbered the Shiite militia's regulars, and Israel had the moral and military support of the United States (and to a lesser extent the majority of the free world). It wouldn't have taken that much for Israel to defeat Hezbollah, for the Second Lebanon War to have ended in a bloody stalemate, or for Hez' victory to have been extremely Pyrrhic. If all else failed the IAF could simply have decided to carpet-bomb Lebanon back to the Cro-Magnon era a la Dresden or even nuked it (granted, that would provoke even more international outrage than actually happened, if not the third world war) if they decided to throw all concern for civilian casualties out the window (unlikely, but never impossible in total war).

Assuming Israel gets this victory, what are some possible butterflies?

--Riding a wave of popularity, PM Ehud Olmert finds it much easier domestically to expel the "settlements" and hand over large portions of the Disputed Territories to the Arabs.

--Hamas/Fatah/Islamic Jihad/Al Aqsa, having witnessed the vanquishing of their brothers in the struggle to the north, are seized with dejection and do not have the morale to mount significant attacks on the Jewish state for a while.

--A jubilant Israeli public and government go on an out-of-control spending spree, resulting in a Greece or Spain-like national bankruptcy and economic meltdown. The massive protests against the cost of living in Israel that took place last summer happen a lot earlier, and are much more violent. In some places there is a near civil-war.

--With Israeli society now being torn apart, the Arabs launch a Third Intifada.

Obviously this is all speculation but I wanted to see what you think.
 
Israel did defeat Hezbollah, in narrow terms. First off, Israel conquered ground, because the Litani offensive saw the IDF standing at the banks of the Litani River in South Lebanon. Hezbollah suffered far heavier human and material losses (up to 1,000 fighters killed, most of their long-range missile network destroyed), and the only reason it's seen as an Israeli defeat is because Hezbollah caused some casualties, managed to keep a steady barrage of rockets into Israel, and survived the conflict.
 
Israel did defeat Hezbollah, in narrow terms. First off, Israel conquered ground, because the Litani offensive saw the IDF standing at the banks of the Litani River in South Lebanon. Hezbollah suffered far heavier human and material losses (up to 1,000 fighters killed, most of their long-range missile network destroyed), and the only reason it's seen as an Israeli defeat is because Hezbollah caused some casualties, managed to keep a steady barrage of rockets into Israel, and survived the conflict.

This, especially.
Malcontent, you're also wrong in some of the facts of your POD. The Israeli corvette that was damaged was by a land-launched anti-ship missile, not a sub-launched torpedo, for example.
I also don't see any of your butterflies as particularly convincing.
 
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This, especially.

To avoid Hezi surviving and possibly avoid some of the Israeli casualties which made it a Phyric victory for the IDF is their anyway to have the Lebanese military on Israel's side? Lebanese ground groups in conjunction with the IDF could mess up Hezbollah even more than 2006 IOTL and the Lebanese fought Hezbollah shortly after 2006 IOTL. Could also avoid some of the international issues since Hezbollah and its allies can't spin the war as an invasion of Lebanon/Israeli imperialism while Israel can spin the conflict as helping Lebanon gain full independence by destroying Hezbollah- the last vestige of the Civil War after the Syrians were driven out.
 
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This, especially.
Malcontent, you're also wrong in some of the facts of your POD. The Israeli corvette that was damaged was by a land-launched anti-ship missile, not a sub-launched torpedo, for example.
I also don't see any of your butterflies as particularly convincing.
My mistake. I did not reresearch the war and was running purely off of memory.
 
Yeah. Defeating a guerrilla group that has support on its home turf is like attacking water with a sword. You can win all the military victories you want, but the survivors just blend back into the civilian population and are still there for another round - and angrier.

Very, very difficult to get a 'victory' in such situations.
 
Yeah. Defeating a guerrilla group that has support on its home turf is like attacking water with a sword. You can win all the military victories you want, but the survivors just blend back into the civilian population and are still there for another round - and angrier.

Very, very difficult to get a 'victory' in such situations.

This. And unlike the corrupted PLO back in the day, Hezzies have the solid support of the local poor Shi'ite population.
 
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