Israeli-Hezbollah Tensions

The Israeli Security Cabinet declared on Tuesday that halting Hezbollah’s attacks against the northern region and subsequently returning displaced people to there is now one of their country’s goals. The larger context concerns the unofficial buffer zone that Hezbollah carved out in Northern Israel throughout the nearly one year of warfare brought about by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on 7 October. Low-level hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel erupted soon after and continue to this day.

It was throughout the course of those engagements that Hezbollah forced most Israelis to evacuate from the border, but likewise, so too has Israel forced many Lebanese to evacuate as well. Nevertheless, the optics are much worse for Israel since it’s presented itself as a regional military leader, only to lose control of security over its northern areas. Hezbollah is a non-state actor while Israel is a state-level one, and this sharp contrast reinforces the perception of the first’s strength and the second’s weakness.

The aforesaid image is compounded by Israel’s failure to defeat Hamas despite its collective punishment of the Palestinians that’s considered by many of its critics to be genocide or at least ethnic cleansing. The means that were employed to this end also shattered Israel’s claims of moral superiority over its foes. This turned the entire Global South and even a growing number of Westerners against the self-professed Jewish State. The end effect is that Israel’s carefully crafted pre-war aura of invincibility is no more.

Even so, Israel remains in denial about this, ergo why it’s carried out extremely provocative attacks against its regional adversaries. This includes bombing the Iranian Consulate in Damascus and assassinating Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, the first of which was responded to by the Islamic Republic with a large-scale drone and missile strike last spring. Israel might have thought that these attacks would remind its foes that its military might is still formidable, but they came off as desperate to many.

The same flawed thinking was likely at play when Israel assassinated Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran over the summer, to which Iran has yet to respond but promised to do so at a time and place of its choosing sometime later. The world initially expected a similar such reaction as last spring’s, but it might have been that Israel actually wanted that to happen in order to drag the US into the conflict. If that was the case, then Iran wisely avoided playing into its enemy’s hands.

To explain, what was mentioned thus far about rising awareness of Israel’s weakness is backed up by the fact that it still hasn’t defeated Hamas and continues to de facto accept the buffer zone that Hezbollah carved out in its northern region, both of which have serious domestic political implications. Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu is a hardcore Zionist who sincerely believes in Israel’s supposed exceptionalism, but everything that he represents is challenged by this state of affairs.

It was he who authorized Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and the expansion of attacks against his country’s regional adversaries, neither of which have resulted in the victories that he expected. To the contrary, each contributed to further weakening Israel both in the realm of global perceptions and military strength, which are interconnected. Failing to defeat Hamas in an offensive war was already embarrassing enough, but having to evacuate swaths of Northern Israel was even worse.

Israelis aren’t oblivious to what’s happening and many have begun to blame him for getting their country embroiled in what appears to be an unwinnable series of wars that makes them less safe. They hitherto believed that Israel was indeed a supposedly invincible regional military leader despite their disastrous defeat at Hezbollah’s hands in 2006, which they considered a fluke. What neither they nor their decisionmakers realized is that the Resistance Axis started to match Israel’s conventional capabilities.

To be sure, they didn’t think that their opponents were pushovers since Israel could have destroyed them long ago if that as the case, but they didn’t appreciate just how strong they’d become. Nobody in Israel expected that Hamas would still be lobbing rockets at them nearly a year after this conflict started nor that so many Israelis would be forced to flee from their homes in the northern areas for so long. These outcomes raise uncomfortable questions about the viability of Israel’s continued existence.

It survived three large-scale conventional wars with its neighbors due to its military strength, but the 2006 debacle and the presently unfolding one show that it struggles to fight hybrid wars with unconventional characteristics. Hezbollah’s enormous missile stockpile has thus far served to deter Israel from repeating its invasion of Lebanon out of fear that its foes could inflict unacceptable damage to it. As Israel becomes more desperate, however, its calculations might soon change.

Bibi is reluctant to accept a ceasefire in Gaza that results in the full withdrawal of Israeli forces, let alone one which leads to the long-overdue recognition of Palestinian independence, but that’s the only diplomatic means for ending hostilities with Hezbollah and returning displaced people to the north. He’s staked his personal reputation and even Israel’s to a degree on achieving a maximalist victory, but it continues eluding him precisely because he underestimated the Resistance Axis’ conventional strength.

His political career might be over once the war ends and he could even end up in jail once the corruption case against him resumes, not to mention the possibility of additional charges for mishandling the war, including if he’s found responsible for the security failures that facilitated Hamas’ attack on 7 October. He therefore has a personal reason to keep fighting, but he’s losing support among society and even members of Israeli’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) alike.

The longer that the conflict drags on for, the more aware everyone becomes of Israel’s military limitations and associated security vulnerabilities, especially as Hezbollah’s de facto buffer zone in the north remains in effect and possibly even expands. Instead of doing what’s best for Israel’s objective national interests by agreeing to the previously mentioned ceasefire scenario, he keeps putting his interests first, which is risking a very dangerous escalation with Hezbollah after the latest announcement.

Some have interpreted that as signaling an intent to throw caution to the wind by considering another 2006-like invasion of Southern Lebanon on the pretext of returning displaced people to Northern Israel but in reality to salvage his political career in the faint hopes of achieving victory. As was earlier written, Israel is too weak to succeed on its own, hence why it arguably wanted to drag the US into the conflict by baiting Iran into responding to Haniyeh’s assassination in a way that could lead to that happening.

The US thus far hasn’t bit the bait either even though it helped shoot down some of Iran’s drones and missiles last spring. Just like Israel, the US is also aware of its military weakness that was exposed by Russia’s resilience in the 30-month-long proxy war that they’ve fought in Ukraine. America’s pre-war aura of conventional invincibility was therefore shattered as well, and while some hawks fantasize about waging simultaneous wars across Eurasia, incumbent decisionmakers know that this isn’t possible.

Clinging to the delusion of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia is considered by them to be a much greater priority than further stretching the US’ already overextended military capabilities by risking a direct war with Iran amidst their declining stockpiles. That’s why their envoys have reportedly told Bibi not to expand Israel’s invasion of Gaza into Lebanon. From his perspective, however, doing so might force the US to intervene in Israel’s support in order to “save face”.

So much American political capital has been invested in ensuring Israel’s survival over the decades that the latter’s thinking is that their top partner (whose policies they disproportionately influence through the powerful Zionist lobby) wouldn’t risk looking “unreliable” to others by leaving Israel out to hang. A large-scale Israeli-Hezbollah war could lead to “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) or at least unacceptable losses, which might make it desperate enough to use nukes per the “Samson Option”.

Once again, the reader should be reminded that Israel can restore security in its northern areas by agreeing to a respectable ceasefire deal with Hamas that leads to a full withdrawal from Gaza and recognition of Palestinian independence, but that’s a politically unacceptable cost for Bibi. He might ultimately be coerced by “deep state” subterfuge into agreeing to that, but he’s fighting tooth and nail against his internal and external foes to at least have his troops remain in Gaza indefinitely.

Hezbollah might not cease its rocket attacks against Northern Israel in that scenario, or even if it does as a “goodwill gesture”, Israel might not reciprocate and could instead continue its own, thus leading to a resumption of Hezbollah’s and the same embarrassing buffer zone that bothers Bibi so much right now. He, the State of Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the US are therefore all in a dilemma since each scenario entails perceived zero-sum consequences that at least one of them isn’t comfortable agreeing to.

The best-case scenario of Israel withdrawing from Gaza and recognizing Palestinian independence would end Bibi’s career and could also lead to his imprisonment while, as some hawks would see it, perpetuating the regional security threats that were responsible for sparking this conflict. The next scenario of a continued Israeli military presence in Gaza, with or without the recognition of Palestinian independence, might be unacceptable for Hezbollah even if Hamas feels forced to agree to it.

After all, Bibi might direct more of Israel’s forces against Lebanon if hostilities cease in Gaza, which could precede the third scenario of him ordering another 2006-like invasion. The US doesn’t want to get embroiled in another costly overseas conflict but nor does it want Israel using nuclear weapons as a last resort either if it’s losing like some expect might happen. These calculations suggest that while the Americans and Arabs might find an accommodation with each other, Bibi could always spoil that.

He’s essentially taken the State of Israel hostage by treating it as his own personal fiefdom despite the diversity of opinions within it over the course of this war and its outcome given the circumstances. He’s also thus far successfully rebuffed “deep state” pressure upon him to settle for a compromise that could be clinched at the expense of his personal interests as was explained. At the end of the day, he’s responsible for this war becoming what it is today, and it’s only he who has any interest in escalating it.