{"id":265796,"date":"2024-07-01T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=265796"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:38:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:38:34","slug":"israeli-defense-minister-vows-to-return-lebanon-to-stone-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/israeli-defense-minister-vows-to-return-lebanon-to-stone-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Defense Minister Vows to Return Lebanon to \u2018Stone Age\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The White House reversed course and now says a ceasefire in Lebanon cannot be contingent on a deal in Gaza.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

27 Jun 2024 <\/em>– Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was prepared to send Lebanon back to the \u201cStone Age<\/a>\u201d with a massive bombing campaign. The White House desperately tries to avert a major war in the Middle East but is not making progress.<\/p>\n

After three days of meetings with top officials in Washington, Gallant told reporters that Israel preferred diplomacy but was also willing to utterly destroy Lebanon. \u201cWe do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario. Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched,\u201d he said. Israel could bomb \u201cLebanon back to the Stone Age, but we don\u2019t want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallant\u2019s remarks come as daily tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel risk escalating into a major war that could see the US, Iran, and other militias across the Middle East enter the fray. After announcing it had \u201coperational plans<\/a>\u201d ready for an attack, Israel has started to move some military assets from near Gaza to its northern border.<\/p>\n

The White House has invested considerable<\/a> effort into bringing the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza to a close. However, rather than applying pressure on Tel Aviv to deescalate, Washington has tried to force Hezbollah and Hamas to accept Israeli demands. Last week, American officials told Beirut that Washington was unable to constrain Tel Aviv, in hopes the warning would convince Hezbollah to back down.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden has significant leverage<\/a> he could use to reign in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but has largely refused to do so. While US officials claim their diplomatic efforts are not stalled, an increasing number of countries worry war will break out and are asking their citizens to leave Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Last week, Biden\u2019s envoy Amos Hochstein visited<\/a> Tel Aviv and Beirut, hoping to work on a deal to end the fighting. At the time, Hochstein pushed for a deal to end the war in Gaza, with the belief that it would lead to deeslcation on Israel\u2019s northern border as well.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah maintains that it will end operations against Israel once the onslaught in Gaza comes to a close. Israel says it will not stop attacks on Lebanon until Hezbollah withdraws several miles from the border. Tel Aviv has decimated southern Lebanon, turning much of the area within three miles of the border into a \u201cdead zone<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the Biden administration\u2019s tactics have flipped, with officials telling reporters that the deal to end the fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border must be separate from any Gaza ceasefire. \u201cThe logic of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah\u2026is that it is all tied to Gaza, and until there is a cease-fire in Gaza the firing at Israel won\u2019t stop,\u201d the Wall Street Journal <\/em>reported, citing a senior Biden official. \u201cWe frankly, completely reject this logic.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of <\/em>antiwar.com, news editor of the <\/em>Libertarian Institute<\/a>, and co-host of <\/em>Conflicts of Interest<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – news.antiwar.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Jun 2024 – The White House reversed course and now says a ceasefire in Lebanon cannot be contingent on a deal in Gaza. It tries to avert a major war in the Middle East but is not making progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":265797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[87,3339,2015,742,88,2097,767,291,427,3196,70,92,174],"class_list":["post-265796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa","tag-gaza","tag-hezbollah","tag-houthi","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-palestine","tag-red-sea","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265802,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265796\/revisions\/265802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}