Israel's policies regarding Lebanon have been dependent on public opinion, which is volatile. The citizens of Israel did not favor the occupation of the security zone in South Lebanon because of the Four Mothers movement, which influenced the government to unilaterally withdraw military forces in May 2000. When Hizbollah attacked an Israel Defense Force (IDF) patrol and abducted two soldiers on the northern border, the Israeli citizens supported the decision to wage a war in retaliation. 
This study aims to shed light on the causal mechanism of the influence of public opinion on defense policy within the rational framework of deterrence strategy. I chose the evolutionary game theory approach as my research method in order to deal with dynamics of public opinion. My study yielded the following result: deterrence is not stable when the aggression level of the defenders is less than the level of the critical condition. The Israeli government made a decision to conduct a unilateral withdrawal under pressure from passive defenders among the people. However, the IDF could begin the operation in Lebanon because of a substantial number of supporters who hoped to retaliate against Hizbollah. As a result, deterrence was restored after the war. We can understand the implications of the case of the Second Lebanon War: the enforcement of conventional deterrence may occasionally require conflicts to occur with small non-governmental military groups.

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