The deterrent effect

It used to be that the IDF was considered to be a very powerful army and that it was a definite deterrence against Arab attacks. Some of its outstanding military operations were the destruction of the Egyptian air force in one day at the start of the 1967 war, the surrounding of the Egyptian forces in 1956 outside Ashkelon (Faluja) and their forced withdrawal, and the battle of the Chinese Farm in Sinai in 1973 that lead to the IDF occupation of part of western Egypt across the canal. But, these were large military confrontations, all of which the IDF won.
Now in the era of terrorism things are different. A large defensive army is vulnerable to mosquito bites, but mosquito bites (as I can attest) can be very painful. The Iranian-backed strategy of Hizbollah and Hamas is to inflict challenges to the IDF by calculated attacks on small units, taking soldiers hostage, and firing rockets into Israel. For this purpose Iran has equipped Hizbollah with long-range rockets, and one that hit Haifa today killed 8 people. Haifa is the third largest Israeli city, it has a population of 250,000 and houses many strategic facilities, including the port and oil refineries. This represents a major escalation of the war as far as Israel is concerned.
The IDF was unable to withstand minor attacks on two fronts, when both could have been anticipated (especially after the threats of Ahmedinejad and Nasrallah) and were unable to prevent the taking of soldiers hostage. Despite the latest anti-missile technology on the Israeli naval vessel outside Beirut, it was turned off and it was completely unprepared for a missile attack! (this should result in a court martial). The IDF moved Patriot anti-missile missiles up to Haifa yesterday to protect it, but there were no alarms and no anti-missiles were fired!
All of the actions so far represent successes for Hizbollah and Iran. In effect, the deterrent capability of the IDF has been put into question. The terrorists have developed a successsful strategy and the IDF, however much it pounds southern Beirut (the Shi'ite area) has been inadequate to stop it. The rockets are still raining in from south Lebanon and northern Gaza. In all these cases the IDF has been far below its expected high level of capability.
We can agree that no-one is perfect, and that generally the IDF does an excellent job, but these events have impaired the IDF's deterrence and have damaged the psychological underpinning of Israeli society, that depends on the deterrence of the IDF as the major basis for the future of the State. Now that 450 katyusha missiles have hit northern Israel in the past few days, and that 8 people have been killed in Haifa by long range missiles, the Israeli population and the world are waiting to see how the IDF and the Israel Government responds to this terrible challenge to our credibility and our existence. By following the trajectories of rockets it is possible to find the source from where they are fired and fire back at the target. The Arab world must see that the IDF is capable of carrying out its task of destroying Hizbollah and stopping the rockets. If Hizbollah now fires even longer range rockets that they have to hit Netanya, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and BG Airport then all bets are off.