Israel’s attacks on Lebanon could sow the seeds of its next threat | Michael Humphrey

Israel’s attack on Lebanon to achieve lasting security is doomed to fail. Just look at history.

Israel claims its escalating attacks on Lebanon are justified as part of its broader war against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s "axis of resistance."

Yet the strikes weaken Benjamin Netanyahu’s control over the conflict and may sow the seeds of future wars.

The September 23 airstrikes that killed at least 558 people and displaced thousands is yet another gamble to see how far Netanyahu can push his parliamentary coalition, his allies in Washington and most of all his enemies, primarily Iran.

Why is Israel targeting Lebanon?

On the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israeli communities which left 1,200 dead and another 250 hostage, Israel has neither defeated Hamas or negotiated an end to the conflict. The price of war has been the levelling of Gaza, more than 40,000 Gazans killed, and more than 700 IDF forces dead in combat.

At the same time, Israel has continued a war of attrition against Hezbollah in the north, a Lebanese Shi’a paramilitary force and a member of the "Axis of Resistance" [1] led by Iran.

The resistance, which includes the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories and a other groups in Iraq and Syria, claim to be waging a legitimate struggle against Israeli occupation.

When the current conflict began, Hezbollah opened a "pressure front" in solidarity with Hamas [2] on the Lebanese border with the declared intention of continuing to attack Israel with rockets until a ceasefire was reached in Gaza.

Over the past year, reciprocal military strikes by Israel and Hezbollah against border communities has resulted in the displacement of more than 94,000 Lebanese [3] and around 60,000 Israelis [4], along with extensive destruction in Lebanon, leaving the border zone poisoned with white phosphorous and uninhabitable for years [5].

Last week’s stunning pager and walkie-talkie attacks [6] on Hezbollah members, widely attributed to Israel but not officially acknowledged by the Israeli government, and assassinations of key Hezbollah leaders, heralded the long anticipated escalation of Israeli military actions against Hezbollah in South Lebanon [7].

Netanyahu has declared that Israelis have the right to live in peace [8] and has pledged to force Hezbollah back from the border to allow the communities to return to live a normal life.

Will Netanyahu learn from history?

Yet the idea that the border can be secured by military action is an illusion.

Israel has sought to defeat and deter its paramilitary enemies, first the PLO and then Hezbollah [9], through the use of assassinations, military strikes and invasions dating back to the Lebanese Civil War [10].

In 1978, 1982 and 2006 it invaded Lebanon with the aim of securing a border zone at the Litani River without any permanent resolution [11].

In 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin went all the way to Beirut [12] to pursue a permanent solution for Israel’s border security problem by evicting Arafat and the PLO [13] and installing a friendly Christian-led government [14] in Lebanon.

Instead the threat of the PLO was replaced by the threat of Hezbollah which was born as a Shia militia to resist the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon [15]. The IDF partnered with the South Lebanese Army, a local militia force it created, to establish a security zone.

Israel finally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 [16] to avoid further IDF casualties from Hezbollah attacks and the failure to negotiate a peace agreement with the Lebanese government.

Israel’s preference would be for the Lebanese Army to establish and effectively control the border, but this is wishful thinking. The Lebanese state is in deep political and economic crisis and has limited sovereignty.

Hezbollah has long operated outside the control of the state and, at the same time, has been able to veto cabinet decision making through its elected members of parliament.

When the Special Tribunal on Lebanon investigating the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri in 2005 issued an indictment against four Hezbollah members it refused to cooperate [17]. As a consequence, the tribunal was forced to conduct trials in absentia in the Hague.

The outcome of the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which PM Ehud Olmert launched vowing to "change the equation" [18], also failed to weaken Hezbollah militarily or politically or to secure an enduring peace.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 [19] brought about peace through the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon, the disarming of Hezbollah, and for the border zone south of the Litani River to be policed only by troops from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese Army.

Instead, Hezbollah became stronger and significantly expanded its military armaments supplied by Iran.

While there was widespread support [20] for Hezbollah in 2006 for its resistance against the IDF invasion, the present economic and political crisis in Lebanon is exceptionally precarious, making popular support for Hezbollah more ambivalent.

Lebanon is flirting with collapse

The government is paralysed, political differences have left the post of president empty, the economic crisis is dire — since 2019 Lebanese lira has lost more than 90 percent of its value [21] and, cumulative inflation runs at 5,000 percent [22], and the UN estimates that 75 percent of Lebanese families are struggling to feed themselves [23].

On top of this Lebanon hosts approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees [24], a quarter of its population. The state is at a point of institutional collapse with widespread despair over chronic lack of impunity of politicians and senior officials.

Politicians appear to avoid all responsibility. No-one has been held criminally accountable for the devastating 2020 Beirut Port explosion [25] from illegally stored ammonium nitrate.

Senior officials cannot be trusted. Riad Salameh [26], who held the post of Chief of the Central Bank for 30 years, has recently been charged with embezzlement of public funds to the tune of $US110 million.

Israel views the present conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah as an existential one [27] ultimately directed by Iran [28].

However, if the Israeli government thinks security can only be achieved by military means, its own experience in Lebanon should be a warning.

Turning Beirut into another Gaza is likely to achieve the very opposite to the security it seeks.

If the Lebanese state collapses, it will only spread the fragmentation brought by war witnessed in Syria and Iraq.

And it leaves the aspirations of Palestinian statehood as a lightning rod for future Palestinian generations and a cause for regional mobilisation against Israel and US influence in the Middle East.

(Author: Professor Michael Humphrey is a Professor Emeritus in Sociology and Criminology at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on ‘Islam in the West’, ‘Political Violence and Social Healing’, and ‘Human Rights and Transitional Justice’)

[Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info.org]