Israel moves to counter Hezbollah
By Victor Kotsev
TEL AVIV - In the past few months, Israel has gone out of its way to cast
itself as a victim of aggression in case a war with Hezbollah breaks out. As
the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) inches closer to
indicting senior Hezbollah officials for the 2005 murder of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafik Hariri, and the likelihood grows that the Shi'ite militant
group will stage a coup d'etat in response, the clouds of uncertainty hanging
over Lebanon are only getting darker.
One would have to be blind not to notice the warning signs. The most recent one
came this week when the Israeli government approved withdrawal from the
northern part of the village of Ghajar - one of the last disputed territories
which Hezbollah in the past has used as an excuse to keep its weapons and its
feud with the Jewish State. "Israel wants [the] UN to declare it free of
Lebanon
border violations," an unnamed senior government source told the Israeli
newspaper Ha'aretz on Wednesday.
This is a clear move to deny the Shi'ite militia any jus ad bellum (and
thus to secure an impeccable right to wage war should an attack from Lebanon
come). It was bolstered by detailed revelations of Hezbollah's mechanisms of
smuggling in violation of UN resolutions. It was also preceded by serious
efforts to set the stage for powerful jus in bello arguments justifying
the use of massive force in the event of hostilities. Photographic proof of
Hezbollah infractions such as its usage of civilians as human shields served
the latter purpose.
Plans for withdrawal were approved against the backdrop of protests from the
inhabitants of the village. "Just like the other citizens of Israel, we deserve
fair treatment different from that which we have been receiving these past few
years," a resident told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, adding that the
inhabitants were united against the withdrawal.
What is notable is that the majority of the people in the village are Arabs who
are Alawite by religion, and thus belong to the same sect of Islam as Syria's
ruling family. By protesting the Israeli withdrawal, they break Arab consensus,
and potentially set a precedent for other territories that are internationally
recognized as occupied - for example, the Golan Heights.
Should Israel have wished to, it could have made quite a big deal out of their
protest, and perhaps even tried to use it as a basis to "legalize" its presence
in the northern part of the village. Such an attempt, however, would have taken
some time to play out, and by choosing to withdraw, the Israeli government
demonstrated that it is in a hurry to gain some legal high ground.
Similarly, a few months ago Israel demonstrated that it was willing to forego
some tactical advantages for the sake of proving to the world that Hezbollah
was using civilians as human shields. [1] Moreover, according to prominent
Israeli analyst Ron Ben-Yishai, a detailed report of Hezbollah arms smuggling
published by French newspaper Le Figaro last month, "prepares world for
possible war". [2] A statement from a few days ago by the chief of staff of the
Israeli army, Major General Gabi Ashkenazi, who warned that the Shi'ite
organization may take over Lebanon in the near future, can be interpreted in a
similar way. [3]
While Israel is clearly preparing for hostilities against Hezbollah, the full
story need not at all be a simple or straightforward one. All this comes at a
time when Hezbollah is facing indictments by the special tribunal for the
murder of Hariri [4] and has threatened to overthrow the Lebanese government if
this happens. [5] Its patron, Iran, is embroiled in a bitter dispute with the
West over the illicit nuclear program it is widely assumed to be harboring, and
the American administration is weighing choices ranging from a military
intervention to a dramatic rapprochement. [6]
There are several main scenarios. Firstly, it is quite possible that Hezbollah
would launch an attack, as happened in 2006 at the beginning of the second
Lebanon war. It is somewhat unlikely that the Shi'ite militia would stage a
major provocation (it has acknowledged that even in 2006 it miscalculated the
Israeli response and did not intend to start a war), but if the international
and domestic pressure resulting from the indictments intensifies, it could
easily launch a few missiles into Israel as a distraction. In turn, given the
elaborate steps taken by the Israeli government to justify a campaign in
Lebanon, such an action could seamlessly blend into a second scenario: an
Israeli preemptive attack on Lebanon.
We should not forget that Hezbollah is a major part of the Iranian deterrence
against an attack on its nuclear facilities. An Israeli pre-emptive strike
against the militia's missile arsenal could degrade its deterrent capacity
severely, and could come as a prelude to an attack on the Islamic Republic. In
an October report, prestigious American think-tank Stratfor writes: "We have
identified three Iranian counters to an American or Israeli attack: Hezbollah,
Iraq and the Strait of Hormuz ... these each have to be counteracted prior to
an attack."
However, there is another major possibility, and it is that neither the
Americans nor the Israelis intend to use violence to achieve their goals. While
they are preparing for this scenario, they may be hoping that they can achieve
their goals through non-violent pressure.
In addition to several UN Security Council resolutions (most recently UNSCR
1701) calling on Hezbollah to disarm, the issue of the Shi'ite militia's
weapons has been brought up a few times in internal Lebanese debates. In the
past, Hezbollah has used for domestic purposes the excuse that it needs to
fight Israel in the south of the country (a large part of which was under
Israeli occupation until 2000). After the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, the
militia struggled to uphold this facade, and kept adding territorial claims for
this purpose. [7]
However, with the withdrawal from northern Ghajar, there is a very real chance
that the United Nations will declare Israel free of infractions on Lebanese
sovereign territory (the international body has previously decided that the
Sheba farms, another disputed territory, belongs to Syria rather than Lebanon).
This would increase the pressure on Hezbollah to disarm, and, in addition to
the STL indictments, could seriously delegitimize the militia. Even without a
military intervention, such a sequence of events could bring about its
downfall, particularly if Syria decides to abandon it. [8] The Syrian regime is
arguably capable of preventing Hezbollah from initiating a violent escalation.
Such a course, moreover, seems very much in line with the current American
administration's policy of soft pressure and diplomacy. It is far from clear
that US President Barack Obama is ready for a rapprochement with Iran, but even
in that scenario he would be well served by weakening the Iranian proxies, if
only to be able to negotiate from a more favorable position. What is much more
likely is that the United States will continue to pile pressure on the Islamic
Republic, in which case Lebanon would be an obvious place to do that.
Thus, it could be that the Israelis are towing the American line for the
moment. What they will receive in return is uncertain, but it could range from
the F-35 planes which the United States offered to Israel last week, ostensibly
in return for a settlement freeze extension, to more decisive American action
against the Iranian nuclear program. In any case, they have little to lose with
this course of action, and should hostilities break out, they will be prepared
diplomatically as well as militarily.
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