Veteran Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says Israel may be planning a major assault on south Lebanon – a gamble that a desperate Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to lose.
With the expansion of the conflict on multiple fronts and the failure of Israel’s army to safeguard its settlers or achieve its goal of destroying Hamas in Gaza in what it expected to be a short, sharp war lasting no more than two weeks, many Israeli and Western analysts concur that there is a growing sense of existential crisis in the occupier state.
The most likely recourse open to Benjamin Netanyahu – after the collapse of the U.S.-sponsored ceasefire talks held in Cairo and Doha over the past eleven months – is to widen the war by launching a major assault on south Lebanon in the hope of finally overcoming Hezbollah and ending the cleverly calculated war of attrition it has been conducting on the northern front, specifically in and around the Galilee region.
Netanyahu failed in his bid to provoke Iran (by assassinating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in its capital) into immediate retaliation against the Israeli interior that could lead to a regional war the U.S. would be forced to join.
Now he is looking to the other option: triggering a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon on the pretext of restoring calm on the northern front and bringing back the 150,000 settlers who fled or were evacuated from their settlements out of range of its missiles and drones.
This impression was reinforced by Netanyahu’s recent remarks about Israel being surrounded by a murderous ideology led by Iran’s “axis of evil” with Hezbollah as its strongest proxy, and announcing he had issued orders to the army and security forces to prepare to change the situation in the north.
Netanyahu, mired in failure on all fronts, wants to raise the stakes in the hope of entangling the U.S. once more in a war on his behalf that would bring salvation to Israel and enable him to remain in power for years to come. He seems to be drawing close to this objective under an agreement supported even by his fiercest opponents.
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Further evidence that he is poised to go ahead with this gamble was provided let week’s Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s Masyaf area close to the Lebanese border in which 18 people were officially reported killed and 37 injured.
Israel alleged it targeted a chemical weapons research facility used by Iranian military experts. Israeli media quoted military sources as saying the attacks could be a prelude to a war on Lebanon given the rising tensions, and Chief of Staff Halevi echoed Netanyahu’s threat to launch an invasion.
Netanyahu is desperate. He failed to achieve any of his objectives in Gaza, especially the elimination of Hamas. He faces the even worse prospect of an armed insurrection in the West Bank. And his troubles were compounded when Jordanian truck driver Maher al-Jazi shot dead three Israeli security guards at the al-Karameh border crossing – potentially the tip of an approaching iceberg.
An assault on Lebanon would be a desperate gamble Netanyahu would be bound to lose, even if the U.S. were to send its aircraft carriers to the rescue. Hezbollah has barely used 10% of the military capabilities it has at its disposal, nor fired a single one of its high-precision ballistic missiles, not even as a warning, sufficing so far with upgraded old Katyushas instead.
The Resistance Axis and its leader Iran are waiting for the first shot or missile to come from Israel. Then there is a real possibility of major retaliation.
Netanyahu was foiled in Gaza and his forces were confounded by its tunnels. How can he expect to win against Hezbollah and its allies in south Lebanon, whose mountains house an entire city of tunnels, concealing military secrets and surprises we will not know about until the war begins?
This article was first published in raialyoum.
