{"id":276341,"date":"2024-10-07T12:01:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T11:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=276341"},"modified":"2024-10-07T06:27:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T05:27:51","slug":"the-chaos-israel-is-sowing-across-the-middle-east-will-come-back-to-haunt-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/10\/the-chaos-israel-is-sowing-across-the-middle-east-will-come-back-to-haunt-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chaos Israel Is Sowing Across the Middle East Will Come Back to Haunt It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Iranians celebrate on a street in Tehran on 1 Oct 2024 after Iran attack on Israel.
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Nothing can persuade its Arab neighbours that Israel cannot live with them in peace more than the course on which Netanyahu is currently set.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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It\u2019s called the ceasefire ritual – a public display of hand-washing. It\u2019s the charade of pretending that there are honest diplomats out there trying to search every avenue, stretch every sinew, to stop this bedlam from starting.<\/p>\n

Much of it is choreographed. Other parts are improvised. But be sure about one thing: it is pantomime. It bears no relationship to reality.<\/p>\n

Hours before Israel declared that its ground attack on Lebanon<\/a> had begun, French<\/a> Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was vainly insisting\u00a0in a media conference<\/a> in Beirut\u00a0that his proposed 21-day ceasefire was \u201cstill on the table\u201d.<\/p>\n

As he was doing so, the US<\/a>, France\u2019s co-sponsor, was briefing journalists that ceasefire talks had stopped<\/a>. This position went through several iterations as the afternoon wore on, and the contradictions accumulated.<\/p>\n

The US simultaneously wanted a diplomatic solution, while describing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah<\/a>\u2019s assassination as an \u201cunalloyed good\u201d<\/a>. It claimed to have restrained Israel<\/a> to a limited operation on the border, while also expressing anxiety about the humanitarian aspect of the operation. And it pledged to continue to work on de-escalating tensions while acknowledging that Israel was a sovereign country that made its own decisions.<\/p>\n

If this charade sounds horribly familiar, that\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n

Cut through the verbiage and the bottom line – as the Pentagon has confirmed<\/a> – is that the US supports a ground invasion of Lebanon, and ceasefire plans can go hang.<\/p>\n

Desire for vengeance<\/h3>\n

The same happened in Gaza<\/a> a year ago. Israel\u2019s \u201cright to defend itself\u201d is shorthand for flattening every neighbourhood unfortunate enough to live next to it.<\/p>\n

This macabre dance serves a purpose: virtually every media outlet in the western world on Tuesday described the unfolding operation in Lebanon as \u201ctargeted\u201d or \u201climited\u201d – precise commando raids that go in and come back out – just as they did during the initial phase of the Gaza war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not expect it will look like 2006,\u201d a US official told<\/a>\u00a0The Washington Post.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Israeli diplomats and generals could not stop themselves from blurting out the truth.\u00a0Mike Herzog, Israel\u2019s ambassador to the US, said<\/a>: \u201cThe American administration \u2026 did not limit us in time. They, too, understand that following Nasrallah\u2019s assassination, there is a new situation in Lebanon and there is a chance for reshaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201creshaping\u201d of Lebanon does not mean a targeted operation limited to the border. Nor was limitation in the thoughts of one Israeli army commander, who noted<\/a>: \u201cWe have a great privilege to write history as we did in Gaza here in the north.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rage and hate speech have reached psychotic levels\u00a0in Israel. The desire for vengeance directed against the people of Gaza has swiftly found a new target: the people of Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu and his US backers will change the Middle East by invading Lebanon, that is for sure. But not quite in the way they imagine.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nir Dvori of Channel 12 News gloated that \u201cNasrallah died in torment\u201d amid reports that the Hezbollah leader had suffocated. The head of the Shlomi town council welcomed<\/a> the ground invasion, saying: \u201cIt is necessary to cleanse the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political commentator Ben Caspit dreamed<\/a> of the \u201cday after\u201d such a cleansing operation, suggesting that even the grandmothers of any fighter in Hezbollah\u2019s elite Radwan Force who crossed back over the Litani River should \u201cdie at that moment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Funny he should mention the Litani River, whose name has often been invoked as the upper limit of southern Lebanon that Israel wants to clear of Hezbollah rockets – because that, too, is turning\u00a0into a myth. The military ambitions of this operation go far deeper into Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Barely 12 hours after the US State Department said it had limited Israel\u2019s operation, the Israeli military\u00a0issued evacuation orders<\/a> to more than 20 towns and villages in southern Lebanon. \u201cYou must head immediately to the north of the al-Awali River,\u201d near Sidon, army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X<\/a> (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n

Redesigning the Middle East<\/h3>\n

This indicates that Israel has claimed as its area of military operations the whole of southern Lebanon, almost one-third of the country. In a stroke, Israel doubled its area of operations.<\/p>\n

This is in line with the promise that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in the hours after Hamas\u2019s attack a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to change the Middle East,\u201d Netanyahu told officials<\/a> visiting Jerusalem from the country\u2019s south, where Hamas had struck on 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n

Jared Kushner, former US President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law and real estate investor who has apparently spent hours<\/a> studying Hezbollah and considers himself an expert on the subject, wrote similarly on X: \u201cSeptember 27th [the date of Nasrallah\u2019s killing] is the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough \u2026 Anyone who has been calling for a ceasefire in the North is wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no going back for Israel. They cannot afford now to not finish the job and completely dismantle the arsenal that has been aimed at them. They will never get another chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu and his American backers will change the Middle East by invading Lebanon, that is for sure. But not quite in the way they imagine.<\/p>\n

After leading the liberation of southern Lebanon after 18 years of occupation, and having led the battle against Israel in 2006, in Hezbollah\u2019s eyes successfully, Nasrallah kept the northern border quiet for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

Under Nasrallah\u2019s rule, Hezbollah was totally absorbed in another fight altogether: the civil war in Syria<\/a>. This had many consequences. It downplayed the primacy of the struggle to liberate Palestine<\/a>. And Hezbollah, as it grew in size and political importance, became easier for Israel\u2019s Mossad to infiltrate.<\/p>\n

Some of the major operations over the past month, such as the supply of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies<\/a>, were years in the making. The exact locations of Hezbollah\u2019s bunkers, and the movement of targets between them, were also the result of years of work and research.<\/p>\n

Dramatic contrast<\/h3>\n

None of what transpired to deliver a body blow to Hezbollah was unprepared, which is why it contrasts so dramatically with the difficulties Israel has experienced in attempting to decapitate Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n

But Israel was also helped by Hezbollah and Iran<\/a>\u2019s \u201cstrategic patience\u201d, or their lack of response to its mounting attacks on their commanders and leaders. Hezbollah never took revenge for the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the leader of its military wing. Nor did it reply in kind to the assassination of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri<\/a> earlier this year in its heartland of Dahiyeh in Beirut.<\/p>\n

The meekness of the response from Hezbollah and Iran only gave Israel the confidence to redouble its blows on Lebanon and Syria.<\/p>\n

Every time this happened, both Hezbollah and Iran went out of their way to say they did not want to start a war with Israel; and that their campaign was in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza and would stop the moment a ceasefire was reached.<\/p>\n