Lebanon… Netanyahu is More Dangerous than Sharon


Opinion
Ghassan Charbel
Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat news
Monday - 16 September 2024

On Sunday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over the Wazzani area in South Lebanon, demanding residents leave immediately under the pretext that Hezbollah was firing from the area. The most alarming part of the message was a phrase warning the population not to return “to this area until the end of the war.”

The Israeli army’s quick claim that the leaflets were distributed by an officer acting on his own initiative does not diminish the seriousness of what is going on in the minds of Israeli security officials. Chief among their concerns is the view that Hezbollah’s Iranian arsenal poses an existential threat.

This is not the first time Israel has resorted to dropping threatening and warning flyers over Lebanon. The Lebanese have long, bitter experiences with this. In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army surrounded Beirut, and its planes dropped leaflets designating “safe routes” for residents to leave the capital. They did the same in South Lebanon as Israeli tanks advanced rapidly toward the capital.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the current situation is far more dangerous than it was during the Israeli invasion that summer. At that time, Israeli pressure aimed to force the Palestine Liberation Organization fighters to leave Lebanon, which was achieved after a ceasefire.

Back then, Israel saw the threat as coming from Yasser Arafat’s forces and his keffiyeh-wrapped appearances from a Lebanese balcony. At that time, Lebanon did not host any force that Israel considered an existential threat, one that needed to be eliminated. From that summer of invasion and flyers, Hezbollah would later be born, after Iran viewed Lebanon as an opportunity to implement its constitutional mandate of “exporting the revolution.”

This time, the dropping of leaflets over Lebanon is quite different from what occurred in the early 1980s. Israel is different from what it was a year ago. The region today does not resemble what it was four decades ago. Lebanon has changed, so did Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

We can also talk about a different Iran, with its arsenal, regional presence, nuclear ambitions, and the imprints left by General Qassem Soleimani on four Arab maps, not to mention his involvement in Gaza’s armament, training programs, and war tunnel manufacturing.

Israel’s defense minister and some of its generals do not hide their desire to repeat Gaza’s scenes on Lebanese soil. They see war with Hezbollah as an alternative to war with Iran itself. They view it as a war with Iran, but on Lebanese soil. Within this context lie dreams of restoring deterrence, imposing a long-term ceasefire, and making Lebanon pay a heavy price for Hezbollah’s “war of attrition” strategy, which the group chose to wage at a calculated pace following the outbreak of the war on October 7.

In previous calculations, observers would dismiss the likelihood of Israel waging a full-scale war against Lebanon. Hezbollah is not encircled like Hamas is in Gaza. Its arsenal is advanced, and its supply routes remain open through Syria, with connections to Iran via Iraq. Moreover, Iran, which can afford to provide limited support to Hamas in its confrontation with Israel’s military machine, cannot exercise such restraint if Hezbollah were to face a crippling blow. In the 2006 war, Qassem Soleimani was present in Beirut, actively participating. Today’s calculations appear to be different.

In assessing the imminent danger facing Lebanon, attention must be paid to the changes occurring in Israel. In recent months, Israel’s most dangerous prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has succeeded in turning the conflict in Gaza into an existential war, not merely a war of discipline or revenge. It is likely that even Yahya Sinwar did not anticipate this. The prevailing view was that Israel could not endure the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and the strain of a prolonged war that would exhaust its population and economy.

This issue is not just about Netanyahu’s personal concerns and his fear of the “day after” the war, with investigative committees and courts awaiting. It also involves the military and security establishment’s reading of the scale of the threats, priorities, and the required costs to confront them. The Israeli public’s belief that the current war is an existential one leads them to tolerate the burdens of a costly conflict in terms of human lives and the economy.

Netanyahu has also succeeded in prolonging the war until America enters its election season coma, particularly after confirming that its fleets have no choice but to support him in the event of a wide regional confrontation.

In recent months, Netanyahu has shown an ability to defy American advice and warnings, as if he is attempting to turn the current war into a decisive one that would spare Israel from renewed fighting in the coming decades. Recent Western accusations against Iran, for providing missiles and drones to Russia and concealing its nuclear ambitions, could further push him toward a major war on Lebanese soil. His combat won’t be easy, of course, and destruction won’t be limited to the Lebanese side, but the prolonged war in Gaza reveals that a shift has occurred in Israel regarding its capacity to wage a lengthy battle.

Hamas’ leadership likely did not expect the war to last long enough to nearly mark its first anniversary. Similarly, Hezbollah’s leadership probably did not expect the “war of attrition” to continue to this extent or at its current cost. Hezbollah ties the halt of its “war of attrition” to the cessation of hostilities in Gaza, but what if Israel decides that the second phase of the “existential war” should unfold on Lebanese territory and unleashes its advanced killing machine on an already fractured country?

It is clear that Lebanon is slipping further into the danger zone. The country is exhausted, and the majority of its people oppose involvement in a full-scale, open-ended war, but it lacks the means to stave off the threat of conflict. Only the US can avert the looming danger, but Lebanon is not prepared to pay the price for America’s role. Netanyahu’s Israel is more dangerous than Sharon’s Israel.