Israelis should watch the footage from Lebanon with repulsion and fear, not glee

Mourners attending the funeral of Hezbollah member Ali Mohamed Chalbi after pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated across Lebanon, Kfar Melki, 19 September 2024

Dahlia Scheindlin writes in Haaretz on 19 September 2024:

One needs no sympathy for Hezbollah to know that the exploding pager attacks in Lebanon and Syria was destined to tear through civilian spaces and kill or wound many innocents.

Although many of the 32 known dead and thousands wounded were members of Hezbollah, they were caught not in combat but mingling at fruit stands. Some belonged to civilian parts of Hezbollah’s social services. At least four children are among the dead so far.

Before the fresh wave of explosions on Wednesday, the carnage on Tuesday looked like a scene of hand-held land mines. The latter have been banned; mass pager bombs should be too, and the actions may well already violate international humanitarian law. Israelis know more than most how bombs in public places terrorize everyone, not just those who are physically wounded. The footage from Lebanon is too horrible to watch, but Israelis are the ones who most need to see it.

Israelis should be – first of all – morally repulsed. Then they should at least be asking themselves: what has this accomplished, and what will be the costs?

On the upside, fanatic militarists will say Israel is finally fighting back against Hezbollah for opening a northern front and making Israel’s border regions unlivable. But that’s a fleeting thought: it was clear almost from the start that this is no strategic game-changer – even before a New York Times headline declared the attack to be “a tactical success without a strategic goal.”

After all, the biggest threat from Hezbollah is its formidable firepower – the legendary 150,000 to 200,000 rockets and missiles with long-range capacity. Haaretz’s Amos Harel reported Wednesday that Hezbollah’s operational and command units are significantly damaged, but the hardware is still there.

The escalation makes the so-far barren diplomatic track led by the Senior Advisor to the U.S. President Amos Hochstein look officially dead. In hindsight, warning signs that Israel had lost patience with this track were there. On Monday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Hochstein pointedly that only military force would achieve Israel’s aim in the north – an unmistakable shift compared to 11 months of the position that Israel would give diplomacy a chance and resort to military escalation only if it failed.

Why has Hochstein’s track failed so far? The details of tight-lipped negotiations aren’t clear, but the big picture is: Hezbollah is linking its own de-escalation to a cease-fire in Gaza. Israel would prefer to de-link the issues, and argue about whether Radwan forces should retreat behind the Litani River, as per UN Security Council Resolution 1701, or perhaps Israel wants grandiose terms, like making them move all the way to the Awali.

Maybe Israel, whose responsibility for the pager attack is not in doubt despite the official silence, believes Hezbollah is weakened, in disarray and that this will make it likely to compromise. The latter part is a shaky bet. Israel Hayom newspaper reported with some satisfaction on a Saudi commentator who observed that “the weakness and humiliation experienced by the Axis of Resistance is clear to see. Their party-god has fallen, its honor [has been] wrecked.”

That makes some Israeli hearts glad, but humiliation is also a powerful driver of violence. The big war – even bigger than the de facto regional war these last 11 months – is that much closer. Israelis will feel the damage in their own daily lives, after the many warnings throughout this time: once again they will gear up for strikes on civilian infrastructure, loss of power and water, and rocket fire that can overwhelm the Iron Dome defense system and reach far inside the country.

Beyond the likelihood of war, the vast attack on Hezbollah and uncertain reports that Iranian Revolutionary Guard figures in Lebanon and Syria were also killed, will probably galvanize support for Hezbollah – as Hezbollah’s role in this war already has in Lebanon. In an alarming, highly detailed analysis by Veena Ali-Khan at the Century Foundation (where I am a fellow), she argues that the war has brought the coordination between members of the Axis, and their technical and military capacities, to an unprecedented level.

As the war has dragged on, she wrote, it ensured that the “strengthened composition of the Axis of Resistance, alongside the newly cemented hubs, would endure,” particularly between Houthis and Iraqi Shia militia factions. This expanded prowess of the Axis “has crossed a threshold in military expertise and coordination that cannot be undone, even if the conflict in Gaza is resolved. The sophistication it has achieved is here to stay, and it is a direct consequence of Israel’s reluctance to stop its onslaught.”

One wonders if Israel’s clever strategist at the top has noticed how much the multifront war is bolstering the capacities of its core enemies in the long term.

It hasn’t been a great week for Israel in general: Germany might be suspending weapons export licenses to Israel, like the United Kingdom did a few weeks ago. After the news broke, Germany then denied it – but the lack of clarity is less important than the fact that it’s Germany, Israel’s most stalwart ally aside from the Americans.

No grand plan, no Mr. Strategy
But the clever strategist, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s core supporters see him, was preoccupied with other things this week. He seemed to float the idea of firing his defense minister, Gallant, while rebranding the move as “replacing” him with the unqualified and uncharismatic Gideon Sa’ar. Polls showed the Israeli public against it by two to one, and social media fired up the demonstration channels, preparing for a reenactment of the massive backlash when Netanyahu first tried to fire Gallant in March 2023.

Did the prime minister get cold feet, did the war distract him back from the political machinations like some minor irritation, when it turned out the fancy operation was reportedly at risk of being exposed?  Was he hoping that dominating the news cycle would distract Israelis from mass protests demanding a hostage release deal, which is also receding from the horizon?

As ever, no one can see inside his head. But the public has told pollsters time and again that they believe Netanyahu’s decision-making on the Gaza war and the hostages is tainted by his political interests. This included 63 percent on Tuesday who said ousting Gallant was in his political interest, not for the good of the state.

A social breakdown of trust is no way to win a war and Netanyahu has yet to offer any path for peace, on any of the current fronts. Yet he is as cavalier with Israeli lives as the pager detonators were with Lebanon’s children.

This article is reproduced in its entirety