Will Israel Attack Lebanon Next?
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Will Israel attack Hezbollah in Lebanon next after defeating Hamas in Gaza?
It’s a question high on people’s minds at the moment. Here are three different views:
First, Elliott Abrams, a shrewd and experienced national security official who served in the Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump administrations and who visited Israel in June. He writes in a July 1 blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations:
In a war, Israel would defeat Hezbollah. The degree of Iran’s own involvement is uncertain, especially if the United States plays a role in deterring Iran and if need be giving Israel strong support—from resupply to missile defense. But the costs to Israel of such a war even with very strong U.S. support would be immense. My own view is that there will not soon be such a war, because Iran built Hezbollah as a deterrent against an Israeli attack on its growing nuclear program and will not “waste” it for any other purpose (at least until it can field nuclear weapons).
Second, the current Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in a July 1 appearance at the Brookings Institution:
One of our primary objectives from day one – since October – was to do everything we could to make sure that this conflict didn’t spread, didn’t escalate, including and notably to the north, to Lebanon, to Hizballah, and then maybe beyond. And so this too is a place of intense focus. And I think you have a paradox in this moment, which is that at least in our judgement none of the main actors actually want a war. Israel doesn’t want a war, although they may well be prepared to engage in one if necessary from their perspective to protect their interests, but they don’t want one. I don’t believe Hizballah actually wants a war. Lebanon certainly doesn’t want a war because it would be the leading victim in such a war. And I don’t believe that Iran wants a war, in part because it wants to make sure that Hizballah’s not destroyed and that it can hold onto Hizballah as a card if it needs it, if it ever gets into a direct conflict with Israel. So on the one hand, no one actually wants a war.
On the other hand, you have forces – momentum that may be leading in that direction and which we are determined to try to arrest. You have as you said, Suzanne, 60,000 or so Israelis who have been forced from their homes in northern Israel. Israel has effectively lost sovereignty in the northern quadrant of its country because people don’t feel safe to go to their homes. You have many Lebanese in southern Lebanon who have also been chased from their homes. And absent doing something about the insecurity, people won’t have the confidence to go back. And that requires two things. It requires first and foremost, of course, stopping the firing across the border that’s endangering people, but it also requires an agreement reached through diplomacy to try to deal with some of the elements that are causing this ongoing insecurity, including making sure that forces, for example, are pulled back so that they can’t endanger people every single day and that people have the confidence to proceed.
Here, again, the United States has been deeply engaged in trying to advance this diplomacy, but it also underscores why a ceasefire in Gaza is so critical. Hizballah, of course, has tied what it’s doing to the situation in Gaza and has said that if there’s a ceasefire in Gaza, it will stop firing into Israel. Now, that’s – it shouldn’t be firing to begin with. It’s wrong in and of itself. But it’s also a reality. So it only underscores why getting that ceasefire could also be critical to further enabling the diplomacy to try to create conditions in which the diplomacy can really resolve this problem, get people back to their homes in Israel, in southern Lebanon, and have something that’s more enduring in terms of keeping things calm.
Third, the chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, Brigadier General (reserve) Amir Avivi, who said in a July 1 briefing: “If they are looking to fight, the big danger is that they will attack first.”
With civilians already evacuated from the Israeli north, “Why wait?” Avivi asked. “We’re in a war, let’s finish this.”
“It always matters in a battlefield who has the initiative, and we need to make sure that we are really the ones controlling the initiative and timing,” Avivi said.
“Now, there are people who say, you know, let’s wait, let’s try to organize, maybe let’s wait two years and have more munitions, maybe build the forces, but we have to understand that in two years, maybe we’ll have Iran nuclear. In two years, maybe we’ll find in Lebanon hundreds of thousands of militia from all over the Middle East that will move to Lebanon. We cannot really know what will happen in two years,” Avivi said. “And also, to me, it doesn’t make sense to say to the Israelis of the north, go back home, while Hezbollah is in full capability, rebuild your lives…and then in two years saying to them, okay, go back to the hotels and see their cities destroyed again.”
“Once you destroy the main proxies of Iran, the ability to deal with them afterwards is much bigger,” Avivi said.
Avivi said that Hezbollah is part of a Lebanese state that has electricity plants, airports, seaports, “It needs to be very clear that if Hezbollah shoots centers in Israel or shoots, let’s say, electricity plants and so on, Israel will destroy all the infrastructure in Lebanon in a way that will take them back to the Stone Age.”
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