[News] Does Israel Really Believe It Can Win a War Against Hezbollah?
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Jul 30 14:16:41 EDT 2024
Amal Saad, a leading expert on the Lebanese resistance movement, says
all-out war could lead to Israel’s downfall
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Does Israel Really Believe It Can Win a War Against Hezbollah?
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Amal Saad, a leading expert on the Lebanese resistance movement,
says all-out war could lead to Israel’s downfall
Jeremy Scahill <https://substack.com/@jeremyscahill>
Jul 30
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On Monday, flights at Beirut’s airport were canceled as Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to carry out a “harsh” military
attack on Lebanon, following Saturday’s deadly strike on a Syrian Druze
community in the Israeli-occupied Golan town of Majdal Shams. The
horrifying incident killed 12 children on a soccer field.
Israel and the U.S. immediately accused Hezbollah of hitting the town
with a Falaq-1 rocket launched from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has
denied it was behind the attack and both it and the Lebanese government
have called on the United Nations to undertake an independent
investigation.
The way that blame for this incident unfolded publicly lends itself to
competing theories of responsibility. Earlier Saturday, Hezbollah had
announced it had launched a series of attacks on nearby Israeli military
installations in retaliation for the killing of four Hezbollah fighters
in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon. When news of the deaths at
the soccer field began to emerge, Hezbollah swiftly issued a statement
saying that it had “no connection to the [Majdal Shams] incident at all,
and categorically denies all false allegations.” Hezbollah charged that
an Israeli Iron Dome interceptor missile had missed its target and hit
the town. Israel has claimed it identified the Hezbollah commander of
the strike.
“Despite [Hezbollah’s] denials, it's their rocket, it was launched from
an area that they control,” said White House national security
spokesperson John Kirby on Monday.
Since Saturday, Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials have
weaponized the deaths in the Golan Heights to preemptively justify a
larger scale attack on Lebanon. “We are all Druze,” proclaimed a post
<https://substack.com/redirect/039da440-7556-4c57-968c-87f46ef093be?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>on
the state of Israel’s official Twitter/X account on Saturday. “These
children are our children,” Netanyahu said when he visited Majdal Shams
on Monday — though the vast majority of the estimated 20-25,000 Druze
residents of occupied Golan Heights have rejected Israeli citizenship
and have regularly protested Israel’s wars and policies. None of the 12
victims held Israeli citizenship
<https://substack.com/redirect/8db28742-aaec-43f3-9759-a7e7507ca0fb?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>.
“Israel will not and cannot let this simply pass on by,” Netanyahu
declared. “Our response will come, and it will be harsh.”
A crowd of residents gathered to confront Netanyahu, chanting
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times in Hebrew for him to go away. Others chanted
<https://substack.com/redirect/46b2d25f-f1ce-4929-b5cb-bc9abf471f14?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>“Killer!
Killer!” and accused Netanyahu of coming to “dance on our children’s
blood.” Some locals told journalists
<https://substack.com/redirect/ab717df8-94ed-4ffa-8f22-7a5b26e5c293?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>they
did not want to be used by any side as fuel for a war between Israel and
Hezbollah and questioned why either would attack their town.
Families of the Majdal Shams victims refused to meet Netanyahu,
according to Ha’aretz
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The visit was under a media censorship restriction until Netanyahu
departed the town. Ronen Bar, the director of the Shin Bet intelligence
agency, accompanied Netanyahu on the trip and Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant visited the site a day earlier.
Israel first occupied large swaths of the Golan region in southwestern
Syria in 1967 and formally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981. Under
international law it remains Syrian territory. In 2019, President Donald
Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy and officially recognized the
Golan Heights as Israeli territory. No other nations have followed suit.
Despite written requests from community leaders in Majdal Shams that no
Israeli officials attend the funerals, far-right finance minister
Bezalel Smotrich and a handful of other Israeli officials showed up at a
funeral Sunday for 10 of the victims. Mourners shouted them down and
demanded they leave. Some denounced Smotrich as a “murderer.”
The rise of the Axis of Resistance introduces an array of other forces
that could join Hezbollah’s side in a war with Israel.
The Biden-Harris administration, while publicly affirming that Israel
would be justified in attacking Lebanon in response to the Majdal Shams
incident, has claimed it does not want a wider regional conflict or a
full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon. In a call with reporters,
Kirby said talk of a broader war was “exaggerated,” adding, “I'm
confident that we'll be able to avoid such an outcome.” Hezbollah and
Israel have both conducted military strikes on each other since the
October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks, but to date there has been no
escalation that has sparked the type of ground and air battles that
ensued in 2006 when Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war.
Since Saturday, Israel has launched a series of attacks in southern
Lebanon, though they have been similar in scope to its previous strikes
over the past ten months. On Sunday, Gallant said, “Hezbollah will pay a
heavy price for this.”
While the Netanyahu regime has consistently threatened war against
Lebanon over the past 10 months and specifically against Hezbollah, many
leading regional analysts believe such action would result in
catastrophe for Israel, militarily and politically. Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, far less sophisticated and armed groups, have
managed to wage a nearly 10-month insurgency against Israeli ground
forces in Gaza while enduring sustained bombardment from U.S.-provided
weapons.
Iran has also shown a willingness to attack Israel. The rise of the Axis
of Resistance, which, in addition to Iran, includes Ansar Allah (the
Houthis) in Yemen, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as the
Syrian government and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, introduces an
array of other forces that could join Hezbollah’s side in a war with Israel.
I discussed all this today with Amal Saad, one of the leading experts on
Hezbollah and the Axis of Resistance. Saad is a lecturer on
international relations and politics at Cardiff University in the UK and
author of /Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion/and /The Iran Connection:
Understanding the Alliance with Syria, Hizbu’llah and Hamas./She is
currently in Lebanon.
My Interview with Amal Saad
*Jeremy Scahill: *You've suggested that you do not believe that
Hezbollah was behind this attack in the occupied Syrian Golan.
*Amal Saad: *Yes. So I said that Hezbollah, it's very unlikely that they
are behind it, not just because they issued the statement. Yes, it was
uncharacteristic, and it was the first time they've issued such a
statement—I don't know about ever—but they have not issued such a
statement once since October 8 [when Hezbollah announced it would engage
in “solidarity” strikes against Israel in support of the Hamas-led
October 7 attacks]. So that indicated, obviously, the seriousness of the
situation and that they were indeed denying responsibility for the attack.
But also beyond that, just on the basis of logic and precedent and so
on. First of all, this town, Majdal Shams, it's not Israeli territory.
It's occupied Syrian territory and its inhabitants are Syrian Druze. The
majority of them have refused to take Israeli citizenship and to serve
in the army. And they are staunch supporters of the resistance axis.
They've supported Bashar al Assad's government in Syria. They've
supported Hezbollah and Hamas. And so it would be extremely absurd for
Hezbollah to attack its own allies.
Now, beyond that as well, I would say, I don't think Hezbollah would
attack Israeli civilians either in terms of a deliberate target. They
would not attack them because that would lead to all-out war. That's
very, very provocative. And I know that [Hezbollah General Secretary
Hassan] Nasrallah has quite recently actually threatened Israel with
such retaliation, saying if you keep targeting our civilians, we're
going to have to do the same sort of thing. But even then, I don't think
Hezbollah would seek out civilians and massacre them like that. They
would probably target civilian objects, which is very different from
targeting civilians, and we still haven't seen that to be fair. We
haven't seen any real civilian casualties in Israel [from Hezbollah
attacks]—there have been quite few. So based on these factors, I think
it's very unlikely that it would be a deliberate strike at least.
*Jeremy Scahill: *It seems that the dominant theories are: either it was
a misfire or a mistake on Hezbollah's part or it was an Israeli failure
of its Iron Dome system and one of Israel’s munitions hit the soccer
field. I've also seen people suggest that it's a false flag, that Israel
intentionally hit the town and they wanted to blame it on Hezbollah.
*Amal Saad: *There are several theories, but I think the one that is
less of a theory and more empirically backed is that it was an Israeli
interceptor missile that misfired, was trying to intercept an incoming
rocket. And I say it has some empirical evidence for this because on
Arab TV, and obviously, we didn't see this in Western media, but we saw
several reports talking to eyewitnesses who said they actually saw that
interceptor missile from the Iron Dome strike the target. And one
correspondent said that an Israeli paramedic told her that, but he said
he couldn't say it on air because he would be arrested. So there have
been several such reports, and it does seem like the most likely
explanation.
But there is also the possibility that other [anti-Israel resistance]
groups were responsible for this. And Hezbollah is not alone in fighting
Israel. Ever since they established this so-called solidarity front,
there have been several other groups, in fact, some secular, some
Islamist. One of them is, for example, Jamaa Al-Islamiya, the [Lebanese
Sunni] Islamic group, which has been involved quite a bit recently in
these cross border strikes. And their members have been targeted by
Israel quite often. So they may have potentially mistakenly hit that
target. If it was another group, it was obviously a mistake. That was
not going to be a deliberate target for anyone.
*Jeremy Scahill: *If it was, though, a Hezbollah misfire, is there a
precedent for Hezbollah taking responsibility if they inadvertently kill
civilians?
*Amal Saad: *Yes, that's a good question because in 2006, there was such
an incident during the July war when Hezbollah, one of its rockets,
mistakenly landed in a Palestinian town. And not only did Hezbollah
issue a statement taking responsibility and apologizing, but Nasrallah
himself personally apologized on TV and paid condolences to the victim's
family. [In that incident, Hezbollah rockets killed two Arab children in
Nazareth. “In my name and on behalf of my brothers, I apologize to this
family,” Nasrallah said
<https://substack.com/redirect/8173efc1-61b4-4270-bd52-5b0e707912bf?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>in
an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera. “Of course, the word apology is
not sufficient. I bear full responsibility. That was not intended at
all.”] So Hezbollah has a history of claiming responsibility, of
admitting to such errors. And I think that also lends more credence to
its argument, or rather its assertion, that it was not behind this.
I think another point also that we need to look at is sort of the timing
of this as well. Last week, Hezbollah issued the third in a series of
drone footage videos
<https://substack.com/redirect/2163ac80-04df-4332-979c-c3698fbf2a31?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>.
It was surveilling a specific military base over Israel and it was
threatening Israel that we will target this military base. In previous
such videos, they threatened others, not just military, but also
civilian targets. Why would Hezbollah do all that to deter Israel from
striking it, if it was just going to provoke Israel a couple of days
later with this? It makes absolutely no sense, as Hezbollah knows that
Israel, if it has decided to launch an all-out war, if that decision has
been taken, and we're all assuming it's not a likely scenario, but there
is always a possibility that such a decision has been taken. If it has,
then why would Hezbollah want to give Israel ammunition to escalate
further? Even if it's not to launch an all-out war, but to escalate
further against itself, that makes absolutely no sense. And the purpose
of that video was to deter such a strike. So it makes no sense that it
would be deliberately targeted.
Why would Hezbollah do all that to deter Israel from striking it, if it
was just going to provoke Israel a couple of days later with this?
Now, again, going back to was it an error? You know, some people said
that Hezbollah, just like seconds earlier, had issued a statement
declaring responsibility for striking something in the Golan which was 3
km away from Majdal Shams. I tried to sort of get to the bottom of this.
It's very hard to tell, but it's not very likely that they would miss by
that far. I spoke to military experts who—and I think this is much more
convincing—who said that if it was the Falaq-1 [missile], because
Hezbollah used the Falaq-1 to strike that target that they announced in
the statement, an Israeli brigade. And if they had used the Falaq-1, we
would have seen a much larger crater, and the crater was much smaller
than would be expected from such a heavy warhead, which is 53 kilos. It
would be much, much bigger and there would be much more destruction.
*Jeremy Scahill: *Why then is Israel so quick to seize on this and to
blame Hezbollah? Do you really believe that Israel wants a full war with
Hezbollah?
*Amal Saad: *There are two reasons it could be doing this. I think the
more likely one isn't that it wants a full war. First of all, it wants
to deflect attention away from its own genocidal crimes and killing of
children on a daily basis. Now, just one or two days earlier, it had
struck a children's school and scores of children were massacred. So
this is very convenient for Israel, and this has [allowed Israel] to
say, ‘Look, Hezbollah is a child killer.’ So it definitely serves a
propaganda purpose. There is definitely that element. In terms of what
kind of military or strategic value can it derive from this, I think it
can use this to pressure Hezbollah through its allies, Western mediators
and so on. And they have been doing this. They have been now pressuring
Hezbollah not only to not respond to Israel, to absorb an Israeli
strike, but also to stop all the clashes across the border. So it's used
to apply this sort of pressure on [Hezbollah] because it assumes that
there will be a lot of internal as well, pressure domestically, from the
state, from the population. And, in terms of the state, I wouldn't say
that's been forthcoming. So there is that element of pressure, of
propaganda value.
And third, it would allow Israel then—there could be this bank of
targets it has, military targets which it hasn't dared to strike before
because it's a bit risky, perhaps, because there would be quite
significant strikes in areas outside of the usual sort of zone of
operations. It might be outside of that and they may now think they can
get away with it, with striking those targets, if it looks like it's
engaged in a counter strike, because this is the first time that we see
that happen in this conflict so far, that Hezbollah has denied
responsibility and Israel is saying, nonetheless, we have the right to
counter strike. So I do think they're trying to milk this as much as
they can.
Now, there's always the possibility with Israel, because we're not
dealing here with a rational actor necessarily, we can't take for
granted Israel's rationality, I think, and there is always the
possibility that an irrational decision will be made and one that tries
to drag the U.S. into a wider war because it would have to do that if it
wants to strike Hezbollah and risk all out war, it would need U.S.
military support, in fact. So there could always be that possibility.
*Jeremy Scahill: *When you say that there are targets that Israel might
want to strike that are outside of the normal zone of their military
attacks on Hezbollah, what types of targets are you referring to?
*Amal Saad: *Well, I mean, I personally don't know, but they could be,
not in terms of just strategic value, it could be their location. So,
for example, the Bekaa is kind of more off limits than these border
areas in the south. So they might strike the Bekaa, for instance. They
have done such strikes, but not anywhere near as many as in the south.
So the Bekaa is more off limits. And Hezbollah has adopted a new
equation. Whenever Israel strikes the Bekaa, [Hezbollah] strikes the
Golan in response. So they might, there might be certain parts of the
Bekaa it hasn't struck. It might be another area altogether. I don't
really know. But I don't think Beirut would be—if we assume [Israel]
doesn't want to risk a war, I don't think they would come near Beirut.
But again, here it's very difficult to foresee the extent to which
Israel is being rational here because it might actually also not just be
not rational, it might also be extremely foolish and think that if it
does strike Beirut, Hezbollah would kind of absorb it if it's a military
target. We don't know. I doubt that. I doubt that. And I know the U.S.,
according to various reports, has warned Israel not to strike Beirut or
heavily populated areas. So that they will most likely, I think,
subscribe to those kind of limits.
*Jeremy Scahill: *There were even some rumors that Israel was
contemplating bombing Beirut airport.
*Amal Saad: *I saw that. I don't really—I think that Israelis make a lot
of noise and there's a lot of accounts on Twitter which spread so much
disinformation and they’re people who are not—sometimes journalists,
sometimes activists or whatever, and even Israeli officials. I mean,
they spread so much misinformation and rumors, and even Western
governments. For example, what they've been doing recently is alerting
their citizens and urging them to leave Lebanon. It's not a new trend.
It's been going on since the start of the war, but these past two days
have been crazy. They've started sending texts to American citizens,
France has joined the fray, Germany, many other countries, all Western,
urging them to leave in a way that they haven't before. And this is part
and parcel of the intimidation campaign. It's to put pressure on the
Lebanese, which in turn puts pressure on Hezbollah and sort of threatens
them with a huge response on Israel's part. So, there is that at work as
well.
*Jeremy Scahill: *How does Hezbollah view this kind of insane moment in
the context of American politics where you have Joe Biden, who's been a
lifelong dedicated promoter of Israel, a self-described Zionist, he's
now stepping down from seeking another term. You likely now have Kamala
Harris versus Donald Trump. You have Netanyahu clearly playing his own
game in part based on American politics. What's your best sense of how
the Hezbollah movement sees the US role in this, given the political
uncertainty of the next few months in the United States?
*Amal Saad: *I think Hezbollah, especially Nasrallah, has on several
occasions declared that the U.S. is ultimately responsible for all of
this. And Hezbollah sees Israel as a proxy of the U.S. Now, yes,
[Israel] does have some sort of room for maneuver. As a proxy, it’s not
entirely beholden. I don't think [Hezbollah leaders] view it that way.
And they do see Netanyahu as having his own kind of personal agenda and
reasons for not always abiding by the wishes of the U.S. But at the same
time, they don't believe the U.S. is serious enough about preventing an
escalation. I think they do tend to believe that it's not in the U.S.’s
interests. And they have said as much. This is not my own analysis. This
is what they've said publicly, that the U.S. doesn't want an all-out
war. However, they also don't think it's doing enough to prevent one.
And that's sort of the contradiction here.
In terms of candidates, I think it's quite difficult. There is, and if
you speak to people here—it's not just Hezbollah—people are generally
unsure about who would be the worst candidate because in one sense, how
much more Zionist can you get than Biden? So in terms of Trump—we've
seen Trump make a lot of contradictory messages. There have been
instances where he hasn't been as conciliatory towards Israel as in
other cases, so it's a bit confusing. However, he is also the same
president who assassinated [Iranian General] Qassem Soleimani and [Iraqi
resistance commander] Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis [in a drone strike in
Baghdad on January 3, 2020]. So he is not risk averse. He's even
irrational, some would say. And I think that's very true. And so the
idea of: would Kamala be better than both Biden and Trump? I think there
is a general sense—I’m not talking about Hezbollah here, but generally
in Lebanon—that she might be the lesser evil based on some of her
statements so far and some reports. But I don't think Hezbollah is
banking on any specific candidate in the same way that Israel is banking
on Trump winning.
*Jeremy Scahill: *If Israel does commit and they do want war with
Hezbollah, what does that look like from the Lebanese side, based on the
history of these conflicts and wars and Hezbollah's response to Israel?
If Israel does send in ground forces or engages in a very heavy, wider
bombing campaign, what could we expect Hezbollah's response to look like?
>From all the information I've been gathering, it would actually lead to
the unraveling of the Israeli state.
*Amal Saad: *Well, I think the Israeli intelligence is quite aware
because I've read a lot of these analyses in Israeli and U.S.
intelligence reports and others, which is that Hezbollah—first of all, I
don't think we would see what we saw in 2006. I don't think Israel would
even get to invade Lebanon in the same way. I don't think it would be
able to stage a ground incursion, definitely not of that magnitude. And
Israel would not be in a purely offensive position. Israel would be also
in a defensive position because Hezbollah would also infiltrate and make
incursions into Israel proper. So, it's going to look very different,
just in terms of the overall strategy of the war, that it will be an
offensive defense on Hezbollah's part. It won't just be defense.
Secondly, the fact that Hezbollah has now fully conventionalized, it's
no longer even a hybrid force. I've spoken to military experts here, and
I've been curious myself to see what they think. Where is [Hezbollah] on
the spectrum of guerrilla to conventional army? Is it sort of in the
middle, like in 2006? They've said, “No, it's actually a fully fledged
conventional force now. But obviously it has these sort of capabilities
of an irregular armed force. It still retains them and has that
experience.” So we're talking here about a much more sophisticated
military organization with well over 100,000 fighters, well over that
number, over 150,000 missiles and rockets. You know, back in 2006,
Hezbollah had just a few thousand fighters, far fewer rockets, much less
sophisticated missiles and rockets. Basically everything that Iran has,
all the weapons Iran has, you can be certain Hezbollah has them, too.
That's what we know. And that's aside from the things that Hezbollah is
manufacturing domestically, like it's drone technology—it's
manufacturing its own drones now. So, we're talking here about a vastly
different military creature than 2006.
And, again, the tactics will not just be purely defensive. They will be
offensive. And that's not even factoring in other actors in the
resistance axis who are itching to join the fight and have declared
their intent to send hundreds of thousands of fighters, such as the
Houthis [from Yemen], to Lebanon.
>From all the information I've been gathering, it would actually lead to
the unraveling of the Israeli state. We're not talking here about just a
defeat for Israel like in 2006. It would be the sort of defeat that
would actually lead to its demise. This is why, when we talk about “the
great war,” which is not a matter of if, it's when, when that war
happens, which is an inevitability, [Hezbollah] have always said that
that is going to be the war that will change the face of the region. So,
we are talking here about a scenario which would definitely lead to the
destruction of a lot of Lebanon — no one is discounting that or
belittling that. But at the same time, it would lead to the destruction
of Israel and while it would lead to the destruction of Lebanon in
material terms, that destruction would not lead to the unraveling of the
Lebanese state in the same way that it would lead to the unraveling of
the Israeli or Zionist regime. I think that's one way of looking at it.
*Jeremy Scahill: *Short of an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon,
what does the future of the resistance axis or the axis of resistance
look like? This has been an unprecedented moment. You don't have Arab
nation states stepping in to say, ‘We’re going to defend the
Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem militarily,’ but
you do have a multifaceted response that is also multinational and
involves both state and non-state actors. What does the future look like
for this resistance axis?
*Amal Saad: *Well, this is the consolidation phase of the resistance
axis. It first emerged in Syria, I would say, like in 2014
especially—that was sort of its peak, 2015, but it wasn't as large as it
is today. It didn't include Hamas, obviously, and it didn't include the
Houthis. Today it's a much larger axis in terms of state and non-state—I
don't even know if we should call them non-state. They're quasi-states
and sometimes, you know, virtual states like the Houthis are now Yemen.
I think it's a misnomer to call it a non-state actor. This is the
consolidation phase. This war has been actually sort of a testing
grounds for how tightly knit this alliance is, weapons and training,
transfer of weapons, military knowledge, weapons manufacturing, you name
it. Coordination, both tactical and strategic. It's taken root here. So
we can only assume that level of coordination and cooperation and
consolidation among its ranks will only grow stronger, not only, by the
way, on the level of political elites or the different militaries of
these organizations, but we're talking about the popular level as well,
that the massive constituencies that each of these actors has is almost
fully behind this alliance.
So I think we're in for a further deepening of this alliance, and we're
going to start seeing how it sort of significantly departs from any
Western alliances or any alliances we've known so far. It's going to
need its own model, its own theoretical model, to study it and to
understand it. It's a new paradigm, really.
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