07-26-2006

A TURNING POINT OF NO RETURN: ISRAELI-HEZBOLLAH WAR POISED TO ESCALATE

Efraim Halevy is a former head of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and the author of the recently published book "Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis With a Man Who Led the Mossad" (St. Martin's Press, 2006).

By Efraim Halevy

JERUSALEM - Events in the past days may be a turning point in the long confrontation between Israel and the Hezbollah paramilitary movement in Lebanon.
Fighting between the two has entered its third week, and rockets and missiles produced in Iran and Syria continue to descend on Israeli towns and villages in the entire north of the country, including the port of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, to the tune of at least a hundred a day.

Israeli warplanes continue to bomb targets ranging from missile launchers in the south to strategic command centers of Hezbollah in Beirut in an effort to whittle down both its operational capabilities and its standing and prestige inside Lebanon and in the entire Muslim world.

Hezbollah, for its part, is trying to damage the morale of both Israel's armed forces and that of the 2 million civilians who have fled the border area or are confined to shelters and "safe rooms."

Developments in Lebanon, in the south and in the north, today have raised the stakes as never before.

In the south, the Israelis suffered a grievous and painful setback Wednesday when elite forces were ambushed in Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold that has served as a regional command post for years. Wounded soldiers were evacuated after many hours under fire, and eight dead comrades were brought back, an inordinate number for the Israeli Defense Forces.

Will Israel now commit much larger forces to the front? This will necessitate calling up many more reserves and could point the way to an extended campaign both in scope and time. For the first time since the outbreak of hostilities, there are preliminary signs of public disagreement among Israelis on what course the country should take.

For the first time since war began - and this is a war - the leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly acknowledged mistakes that he has made; this is a clear sign that he feels that support for his defiant policies may be eroding. It was he who initiated this round of hostilities by launching a raid across the international border between Lebanon and Israel, killing soldiers, kidnapping two of them and then demanding that Israel negotiate their return in exchange for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Coming right after a similar operation mounted by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip, unilaterally evacuated by Israel less than a year ago, the action of Nasrallah was a public challenge to the new Israeli leadership. Nasrallah publicly taunted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz and portrayed them as novices.

Nasrallah admits now that he miscalculated and that he mistakenly thought that Israel would follow the line that previous governments have taken and would negotiate. Instead, Israel declared it would not negotiate and, instead, unleashed an attack against Hezbollah designed not only to force the return of its soldiers but also to cripple Hezbollah's capability to attack Israel with its arsenal of over 12,000 rockets and missiles.

Nasrallah claimed, falsely, that his action had preempted an Israeli plan to attack in September or October. This argument was designed to assuage growing anger in Lebanon against Hezbollah for propelling the country into war, which has brought destruction and strife to the population and ruin to its just recently revived economy.

Nasrallah has threatened to send his missiles deeper into the south, into the heartland of Israel, and simultaneously he is showing signs of gloom and desperation, as he witnesses not only the refusal of the Arab world to support him but also its tacit hope that Israel will move in and finish the job.

Nasrallah has said that his prime goal is not to hold on to territory but rather to inflict as many losses as possible on Israel and on its Defense Forces.

Thus are the two sides poised for the next step, for a steep escalation aimed simultaneously on the part of each of them to break down the spirit and resistance of the other.

Nasrallah appears to be the weaker of the two warring sides; that is why his patrons, Syria and Iran, are issuing ever strident calls for an immediate cease-fire, and that is why Israel (and the United States) are opposing a quick artificial halt to hostilities that would leave the Hezbollah more or less intact to fight another round when it can return to southern Lebanon refreshed and rearmed. 

Indeed, none other than the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has issued an appeal to stop the fighting; he, who has repeatedly denied Israel's right to exist and has repeatedly called for it to be "erased" from the face of the earth, is now asking for respite!

But what is at stake concerns much more than the immediate parties at hand, as the history and nature of Hezbollah make clear. Hezbollah is a movement in Lebanon that is part of the revolutionary religious Shiite faction of Islam led by the spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Hassan Nasrallah defers to Tehran both spiritually and politically and has official Iranian representatives on his national religious council, the Shura. Iranian advisers are constantly present, close to key strategic weaponry supplied by Tehran, and every strategic decision is cleared by Iran. 

Hezbollah activities range from conventional guerilla combat on the ground in Lebanon    to manning its strategic rocket and missile arsenal directed at ever greater areas of Israel. It has maintained an international terrorist arm that has operated in far-flung areas such as Southeast Asia and Latin America (the border triangle of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay), and it has infrastructures in key African states (both East and West) and in key European cities.

It has operated hand in glove with the intelligence services of Iran, blowing up the American compound in Beirut in 1983, causing the deaths of over 200 American Marines, and the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 respectively.

Over the years, Hezbollah has matured as an invaluable and effective strategic asset in Iran's effort to establish itself as a regional power in the Middle East. Iran encouraged Hezbollah to enter Lebanese politics, and, today, the movement is represented in the country's Cabinet. Hezbollah forms the nucleus of Iran's ultimate desire to control the destiny of Lebanon. Iran wants to secure a foothold on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, which would enhance its prestige and provide it with excellent access to the Muslim communities of Europe, initially in the Balkans (where an Iranian intelligence "antenna" was hyperactive during the '90s).

That is why the confrontation in Lebanon has significance far beyond the immediate interest of the parties locked in battle, and that is why it should be of concern for so many countries and nations around the world. 

Israel cannot afford to emerge from the present crisis without the threat to its population centers permanently removed, and Hezbollah claims it will not accept any resolution of the conflict that would contain any element of humiliation. The two aims are irreconcilable, and Israel is determined not to settle for less than full security for its citizens.

(c) 2006 Global Viewpoint
Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.(Distributed 7/26/06)