Don’t believe the ‘no choice’ lie. Israel does not need a war in Lebanon

A damaged residential building in northern Israel after Hezbollah fired a barrage of projectiles from Lebanon, September 2024

Zvi Bar’el writes in Haaretz on 18 September 2024:

Israel is rushing with its eyes wide open into a war of choice in Lebanon, without knowing who will be the defense minister leading it, while the IDF’s state of readiness is unclear, with its weakest international support ever and its home front in ruins. If until now, the government of destruction has abandoned “just” the region near the Gaza Strip and the communities of the Galilee, then a war in Lebanon will not spare any town in Israel.

Lucky Israelis will spend their days and nights in suffocating safe rooms, others will run to the stairwells or look for shelter under trees and rocks. At a time when Air Force planes send Lebanon back to the Stone Age, the airports will close down, Israeli hospitals will collapse, schools and preschools will shut down and tens of thousands of workers will abandon their jobs.

This will be just the beginning. We can forget about the hostages, who have already become an unwelcome annoyance and are a heavy burden thwarting “total victory.” Their bodies will be pulled out from the tunnels one after the other, and it’s doubtful they will even be given a memorial service; after all who will be in the mood for such a ceremony when the war in Lebanon sets the entire country on fire? That’s what an all-out war looks like.

Ambulances arrive to American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday.Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
Anyone expecting a quick war in which a swift strike destroys Hezbollah’s “infrastructure” within two or three weeks should in any case follow the recommendations to prepare a stock of food, water, money, toilet paper, batteries and generators. Not everyone will have room in the nuclear bomb shelter in Caesarea or a guaranteed seat on the Wing of Zion plane.

Firefighter in northern Israel, on 15 September 2024

But the heavy price will be worth it, because just like in Gaza, Israel most definitely has a perfect strategy for achieving its goals in Lebanon. It’s worth noting that just this week, after almost a year, the government remembered to “update” its war goals by adding the return of the northern residents to their homes in peace. It turns out that the obvious was not even a goal until now. And what about the rest of the goals? To destroy the “terror infrastructure ” of Hezbollah? Maybe a “new order” in Lebanon?

For 18 years Israel wallowed in the Lebanese swamp until it realized the concept that led to its invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 had been bankrupt since the first few months of the war. The expectations of a civil revolt in Lebanon that would force Hezbollah to hold its fire and declare it had made a mistake is an illusion, the same as the expectation that Gazan residents would rise up against Hamas. Instead, it is possible to expect an international “revolt” that will impose sanctions and a weapons embargo on Israel, which will, of course, continue to “fight down to its fingernails,” in Netanyahu’s encouraging revelation.

Israel may dream of reestablishing the “security zone” in Lebanon, or copy the “perimeter” method – a buffer zone – that surrounds the Gaza Strip, and to push back any threat. This means a long-term occupation inside Lebanese territory, in other words to repeat the same mistake and expect different results.

It’s also worth remembering that a massive military presence in the West Bank has not brought quiet, and in Lebanon the story is much more complicated than the West Bank or Gaza. It won’t be enough to distance Hezbollah from the border or all the way to the Litani river. Hezbollah has a concrete military rear-front just north of the Litani, its routes for reinforcements and equipment do not rely on a Lebanese Philadelphi corridor – and we still have not yet talked about Iran’s potential participation.

This nightmare scenario need not become reality. The window of diplomatic opportunity has not yet closed. A hostage deal is still valid, and its price is lower than any ambitious war that Israel will initiate in Lebanon. Not just because it will pay off the enormous debt the Israeli government and the country owes to its citizens. It could possibly save us from another unnecessary war.

When such a deal is on the table, we must not buy the bluff that a war in Lebanon is a war of “no choice,” or one that was “forced on us.” A choice exists, we have free will and there is a way out. The tragedy is that this will most likely only be proved when a state commission of inquiry is established after the Third Lebanon War, which will make it clear that the only threat forced on us is a crazy government.

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