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<div
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class="preview">Amal Saad, a leading expert on the Lebanese
resistance movement, says all-out war could lead to Israel’s
downfall</div>
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href="https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2510348&post_id=147145026&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=lvppb&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNjc1MTU4MywicG9zdF9pZCI6MTQ3MTQ1MDI2LCJpYXQiOjE3MjIyOTg1MjMsImV4cCI6MTcyNDg5MDUyMywiaXNzIjoicHViLTI1MTAzNDgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.hfg5RC83BMEf_y_oxj18EDAIzfb1xCD1JZlvYBQaPko"
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moz-do-not-send="true">Does Israel Really
Believe It Can Win a War Against Hezbollah?</a></h1>
<h3 class="subtitle"
style="-moz-appearance: optimizelegibility; -moz-osx-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-appearance: optimizelegibility; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; appearance: optimizelegibility; color: #777777; font-family: 'SF Pro Display', -apple-system-headline, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol'; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 4px 0 0; margin-top: 12px;">Amal
Saad, a leading expert on the Lebanese resistance
movement, says all-out war could lead to Israel’s
downfall</h3>
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href="https://substack.com/@jeremyscahill"
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datetime="2024-07-30T00:14:19.826Z">Jul 30</time></div>
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style="font-family: 'SF Pro Display', -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Inter', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol'; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 16px; text-align: initial; width: 100%; word-break: break-word;">
<div class="captioned-image-container-static"
style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto; margin-top: 0;">
<figure style="margin: 0 auto; width: 100%;">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. </figure>
</div>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. <br>
</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">“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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><span>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 </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/039da440-7556-4c57-968c-87f46ef093be?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">post</a><span> 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 </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/8db28742-aaec-43f3-9759-a7e7507ca0fb?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Israeli citizenship</a><span>.
“Israel will not and cannot let this simply pass
on by,” Netanyahu declared. “Our response will
come, and it will be harsh.” </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><span>A
crowd of residents gathered to confront
Netanyahu, </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/b3c1be4c-04a8-4f1f-bde4-af2cc1ba6f05?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">chanting</a><span> at
times in Hebrew for him to go away. Others </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/46b2d25f-f1ce-4929-b5cb-bc9abf471f14?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">chanted</a><span>
“Killer! Killer!” and accused Netanyahu of
coming to “dance on our children’s blood.” Some
locals </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/ab717df8-94ed-4ffa-8f22-7a5b26e5c293?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">told journalists</a><span>
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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><span>Families
of the Majdal Shams victims refused to meet
Netanyahu, according to </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/8a22ea11-e010-48d1-9c4d-d02fac8aabe1?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Ha’aretz</a><span>. 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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.”</p>
<div class="pullquote"
style="border-bottom: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto;">
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 500; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px 0; text-align: center;">The
rise of the Axis of Resistance introduces an
array of other forces that could join
Hezbollah’s side in a war with Israel.</p>
</div>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.”</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><span>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 </span><em>Hizbu’llah:
Politics and Religion</em><span> and </span><em>The
Iran Connection: Understanding the Alliance with
Syria, Hizbu’llah and Hamas.</em><span> She is
currently in Lebanon.</span></p>
<h3 class="header-anchor-post"
style="-moz-appearance: optimizelegibility; -moz-osx-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-appearance: optimizelegibility; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; appearance: optimizelegibility; color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-family: 'SF Pro Display', -apple-system-headline, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol'; font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0 0.625em 0; position: relative;">My
Interview with Amal Saad</h3>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>You've suggested that
you do not believe that Hezbollah was behind
this attack in the occupied Syrian Golan.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>If it was, though, a
Hezbollah misfire, is there a precedent for
Hezbollah taking responsibility if they
inadvertently kill civilians?</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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 </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/8173efc1-61b4-4270-bd52-5b0e707912bf?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a><span> 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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><span>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
</span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/2163ac80-04df-4332-979c-c3698fbf2a31?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: #00058c; text-decoration: none;"
moz-do-not-send="true">drone footage videos</a><span>.
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. </span></p>
<div class="pullquote"
style="border-bottom: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto;">
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 500; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px 0; text-align: center;">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?</p>
</div>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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?</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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. </p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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?</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>There were even some
rumors that Israel was contemplating bombing
Beirut airport.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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?</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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?</span></p>
<div class="pullquote"
style="border-bottom: 1px solid #e6e6e6; border-top: 1px solid #e6e6e6; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px auto;">
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 500; line-height: 26px; margin: 32px 0; text-align: center;">From
all the information I've been gathering, it
would actually lead to the unraveling of the
Israeli state.</p>
</div>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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.</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Jeremy
Scahill: </strong><span>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?</span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;"><strong>Amal
Saad: </strong><span>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. </span></p>
<p
style="color: rgb(54, 55, 55); font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0 0 20px 0;">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.</p>
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