fighting the war as if there are no negotiations, and
negotiating as if there is no war
Avi Melamed
It is dangerous to be found in the company of God's enemies
Operation Northern Arrows - 29 Sep 2024
US President Joe Biden commented on the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a result of an Israeli airstrike, saying that his death is a "measure of justice" for the numerous victims of the organization's terrorist activities. Biden's official statement was published on the White House website.
Biden emphasized that over four decades, Nasrallah and his Hezbollah group were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, as well as thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians. It is noted that this airstrike took place against the background of a wider conflict that began with a mass attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The day after that, Nasrallah decided to unite with Hamas and launch the so-called "Northern Front" against Israel.
Biden reaffirmed that the United States fully supports Israel's right to self-defense against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups. The US President also noted that he instructed the Secretary of Defense to strengthen the defensive positions of the US military in the Middle East region in order to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a larger-scale war.
"Just yesterday, I instructed my Secretary of Defense to further strengthen the defense posture of US military forces in the Middle East to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war," Biden said in a statement. Ultimately, according to Biden, the main goal of the United States is to diplomatically de-escalate the conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon.
International newspapers and websites focused in reports and opinion articles on the developments taking place in Lebanon, especially the repercussions of the Israeli occupation’s assassination of the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Lebanon and Iran.
The Washington Post wrote in an opinion piece that "Nasrallah is gone, but Hezbollah's threat to Israel remains." The article adds that Israel will continue to have to deal with Hezbollah for years to come, while stressing that the party, in turn, must "worry about the secrets of Israel's success in penetrating it at the highest levels," noting that the mission of Nasrallah's successor will not be easy.
The French newspaper Le Monde monitored the repercussions of the assassination of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, and quoted a French expert on Lebanese affairs as saying, “Lebanon feared the growth of sectarianism with the disappearance of Nasrallah, but the circumstances in which he was killed and the way he was killed aroused resentment even among those who do not like him.” According to the French website Mediapart, Nasrallah “combined the qualities of a military, political and religious leader and became an icon when his popularity reached its peak in the first decade of the current millennium,” “but the status he achieved and the expansion of Hezbollah’s scope, strength and activities were factors that had negative costs and repercussions on him and his organization.”
The Guardian newspaper addressed Iran's position, and Patrick Wintour wrote, "The killing of Hassan Nasrallah has left Iran facing the fateful choice it has long sought to avoid." Wintour added "If Tehran does not prove more decisive than it has been so far, the biggest winner who can turn the tide will be Benjamin Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister)". Al Jazeera Net's political harvest of the most important files in the region and the world.
The French newspaper La Croix said in an editorial that Israel wants to ensure its security by imposing terror in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, and described the killing of Nasrallah as "a step towards the unknown taken by Israel."
Haaretz newspaper published an analysis by Yossi Verter in which he said that despite the joy that spread throughout Israel after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, “we must not forget that a government consisting of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir is the one destroying Israel,” referring to the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich. "Israel needs a leader who will restore reason to its government and also rebuild its relations in the region and with the United States," the writer added.
In Foreign Affairs magazine, Andrew Miller, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, wrote an article in which he called on Washington to reconsider its diplomatic approach and “adopt a new strategy that would spare the Middle East a greater catastrophe.” The writer believes that shuttle diplomacy must lead to effective results and end the war in Gaza, and he pointed out that "the lives of Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese and Americans depend on the next American approach."
The Lebanese Hezbollah party has expanded the scope of its missile attacks on Israel, despite the air strikes it received from the Israeli Air Force on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which resulted in the assassination of the party’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah. During the past 24 hours, the party launched 15 rocket barrages, the range of which reached the greater Tel Aviv area, while sirens sounded repeatedly in more than 100 Israeli towns from Haifa to the northern border with Lebanon and the settlements of the occupied Syrian Golan , accompanied by swarms of booby-trapped drones, forcing about 3 million Israelis to stay near shelters and fortified rooms.
Hezbollah missiles struck settlements and Israeli military sites in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem , causing damage and losses to property, homes and public buildings, and sparking dozens of fires that destroyed vast areas estimated at thousands of dunams of forested areas. The number of rockets fired since Nasrallah's assassination is about a thousand inaccurate rockets, most of them short-range, the only exception being the ballistic ones that attacked the coastal area towards Tel Aviv, immediately after the assassination last Friday night. Israel fears that Hezbollah will seek to respond with strategic fire, according to what the Home Front Command monitored.
Amos Harel, a military analyst for Haaretz, said that it is better to moderate the joy of victory, and even when the party and Iran are shocked by this sudden move, Israel must prepare for a possible escalation in their responses, which could exact a heavy price deep within the Israeli home front. He estimated that the party's response might be to launch massive missiles at the north of the country and the greater Tel Aviv area, in parallel with the launching of ballistic missiles and drones by the Houthis and "Shiite militias" in Syria and Iraq, in addition to the possibility of launching attacks on Israeli communities abroad and Jewish communities around the world.
Harel explained that with the announcement of Nasrallah's assassination, hundreds of rockets were fired, most of them at the north, the Galilee and the Golan Heights, and two surface-to-surface rockets, one from Lebanon that fell into the sea, and the other from Yemen that was intercepted. Sirens sounded in the center of the country, and this is "an indicator of the intense missile attacks that Israel may be exposed to from various arenas."
The same reading was presented by Orna Mizrahi, a researcher in strategic affairs at the National Security Research Center at Tel Aviv University, who believes that the assassination of Nasrallah creates new types of challenges, saying that “the threats facing Israel have not disappeared, but have changed, and it must be aware and prepared to confront them.” According to her, it should be taken into consideration that the war on Hezbollah has not ended yet, and the party still constitutes a major force that threatens Israel from Lebanon. With the assassination of Nasrallah, not all of its leaders and tens of thousands of its members have disappeared.
The researcher estimated that despite the blows Hezbollah received, it still has enough weapons and missile power to continue targeting and bombing the Israeli depth, noting that the recent events targeting the party and the attacks on the southern suburb only serve to strengthen its motivation to escalate and harm Israel. Now, without Nasrallah’s organized logic, “weakening Hezbollah’s chain of command could encourage elements that feel independent in the field to act and create a new kind of challenge for the IDF, while increasing the possibility of retaliation by the Iranian axis in its various components,” says researcher Mizrahi.
In an official statement, the party mourned its Secretary-General and said, "The leadership of Hezbollah pledges to the highest, most sacred and most precious martyr in our journey full of sacrifices and martyrs to continue its struggle in confronting the enemy and in support of Gaza and Palestine and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people." The same statement added an appeal, "To the honorable mujahideen and the victorious and triumphant heroes of the Islamic Resistance, our leader, His Eminence, is still among us with his thought, spirit, line, and sacred approach, and you are committed to the pledge of loyalty and commitment to resistance and sacrifice until victory."
The assassination of Nasrallah is considered the most important and largest operation at the party level since the declaration of the south as a support front for Gaza about a year ago, after a series of assassinations of its senior military leaders, including Fouad Shukr , Wissam al-Tawil, Ibrahim Aqil , Ahmed Wahbi , Ibrahim Qabisi , Muhammad Hussein Surur , and other field and military leaders.
With the greyness of the scene, political analysts and experts drew for Al Jazeera Net the possible scenarios for what would happen after the assassination, amidst a consensus that the region has entered a dark tunnel after Israel insisted on dragging it into a large-scale war, and exploiting the absolute American support within the framework of the calculations of the presidential election game.
Political analyst Hassan Al-Durr believes that the resistance had been avoiding being dragged into a comprehensive war from the beginning, and was seeking to establish a front of support and attrition for Israel. In contrast, the occupation was constantly seeking to drag the region into a major war, while the resistance was responding to provocations and targeting with calculated operations to avoid reaching this stage.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, he believes that since the assassination of martyr Fouad Shukr and the bombing of the pager communication devices , Israel has decided to wage war on its own. He points out that the war has reached its peak today, and that everything the resistance was trying to avoid has happened, "which makes the current situation dark and without a specific ceiling according to all standards."
According to analyst Al-Durr, the main question that remains unanswered is the extent of the support that may come from other fronts such as Iran , Yemen , Iraq , and Syria . He adds that there are questions about whether this war will develop into a major war in which there is no room for anything but confrontation until the end, “but the answer is not clear yet.” He continues that the international and regional situation is also still unclear. It is not yet clear whether Israel will be satisfied with what it has achieved so far, and consider that it has regained deterrence and move towards stopping the war or accept that, or whether it will continue fighting because it considers that it has achieved "sufficient accomplishments to restore its entity and army since October 7th ."
In the opinion of analyst Al-Durr, all these questions remain without clear answers, saying that the potential response from the resistance may be unprecedented. He added, "But the question remains: What comes after that? Will we witness a settlement, and will Israel accept a settlement after these developments? Or are things heading towards a radical change in the region, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about a new Middle East?"
In turn, researcher and political writer Ali Matar told Al Jazeera Net that Hezbollah will heal its wounds and rise again to complete its project. He explained that the party, as a resistance force, is an ongoing project that does not stop, despite the great loss and the harsh blow. He pointed out that its former secretary-general, Abbas al-Musawi , was previously martyred, and Hassan Nasrallah was elected to continue the march. The party also managed to expel the occupation from Lebanon in 2000, and fought a successful war against Israel in 2006. Regarding the party’s position today, Matar explained that the goal is to complete this process, and it is expected that a new Secretary-General will be appointed after the funeral ceremony, and if that happens, he will likely adopt a strong position on issues related to Jerusalem , “as Palestine has always been the focus of Nasrallah’s attention.”
He pointed out that loyalty to Nasrallah's blood means the party's commitment to completing its project, which makes it difficult to stop it. Although the rules of the game have changed significantly, there are important transformations that will occur "which put us in sensitive and dangerous stages." It is important to wait to see what Hezbollah's position will be, as these positions will determine the next steps.
Researcher Matar stressed the need to continue supporting Gaza and Palestine, noting that Hezbollah will not back down from this commitment. He expected to witness a confrontation that could be one of the most dangerous in the party’s history. According to him, the party has a strong organizational strength and will reorganize itself and arrange its affairs to continue its journey. He stressed that history proves that whenever leaders are martyred, the journey continues in all resistance movements, which is “the undeniable truth.”
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the intensive strikes launched by the Israeli army on Hezbollah do not give Iran any reason to participate in the fighting, noting that the new phase of the conflict puts Tehran at an inappropriate moment diplomatically. The newspaper reported that Iran is currently focusing on a diplomatic campaign aimed at reaching a political solution with the United States regarding its nuclear program.
However, according to the newspaper, it is still too early to be certain of what the Iranian leadership, headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , wants, and whether it is truly seeking to resolve the nuclear issue or whether its goal is merely to buy time until October 2025, the date of the expiration of the clause that allows European countries to renew sanctions on Iran without veto power in the Security Council.
In either case, the newspaper says, the last thing Iran wants amid its current diplomatic campaign is to be drawn into a direct military confrontation with Israel, let alone the United States. Iran has sought a ceasefire since the beginning of the war in Gaza, but as the war has continued, it has sought to exhaust Israel in a long, multi-front war without paying too high a price. It has strongly condemned Israel's actions and called on the international community to work to stop the strikes launched by Israeli forces on Hezbollah targets.
The Iranian president told CNN that Lebanon should not be left to become "another Gaza" at the hands of Israel, and explained that Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a state like Israel, which has advanced weapons and enjoys the support of the United States.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi , who was part of the nuclear negotiating team that led to the historic 2015 deal with the United States, has stressed that Iran will not remain indifferent to Israeli attacks and said it will support Lebanon. But it is clear, according to the newspaper, that Iran will not intervene militarily directly on behalf of Hezbollah at this stage, especially since senior Iranian officials have warned in recent days against falling into a trap set by Israel for Iran. Pezeshkian accused Israel of seeking a large-scale war in the Middle East and trying to create a situation that would drag his country into a comprehensive confrontation. His foreign minister said that Iran is fully aware that Israel is trying to escape the impasse it faces in Gaza by dragging Iran and the United States into war, but Tehran has no intention of falling into this trap.
Yedioth Ahronoth expected that Iran would drag Israel into a long-term war of attrition with Hezbollah, if Tel Aviv decided to launch a ground operation in Lebanon, which could drain Israel militarily and on the home front, and prevent it from achieving its goals, whether in Gaza or on the northern front. However, severe and prolonged damage to Hezbollah’s strategic capabilities could change Iran’s assessment of its ability to maintain Hezbollah as a key strategic arm to deter Israel and respond in the event of an attack on its nuclear facilities.
This scenario - according to Raz Zimmt, a researcher and expert on Iranian affairs at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies - may force Iran to intervene directly to save the Hezbollah project that it has sponsored for decades, unless a ceasefire is reached before Iran needs to intervene.
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