Israel’s latest advance into Lebanon, capturing strategic points north of the Litani river and reinforcing its scorched earth policies south of it, is a dangerous escalation of the conflict and a clear violation of international law. Presented as a necessary protection of Israeli interests against Hizbullah, the operation appears to be a gamble calculated to tip the balance against a US peace deal with Iran. This would cut right against prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s own political interests and his strategy to topple Iran’s regime.
The attack’s scale and devastation reinforce damage already done to Lebanon’s population and infrastructure since Hizbullah’s launch of missiles into northern Israel on March 2nd triggered Israel’s highly disproportionate response. Over one million people have been displaced from southern Lebanon in the Israeli operation, nearly 3,500 people have died, many more been injured and infrastructure and villages brutally erased, as in Gaza. In the name of eliminating the genuine Hizbullah threat to northern Israeli communities, Netanyahu has in fact reinforced that movement’s legitimacy in the eyes of many Lebanese to resist an occupying force. Hopes among many in Israel and Lebanon for a lasting peace are thus being undermined.
Netanyahu’s lifetime ambition to topple Iran’s Islamist regime as the greatest threat to Israel’s survival has been fully in play throughout this crisis. His single-minded pursuit of it in league with US president Donald Trump’s ambition to achieve the same goal for American interests became badly unstuck as the war elongated and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation. Trump’s desire for a quick Iran peace deal now conflicts with Netanyahu’s need for a victory. Both Israel and Hizbullah continued their attacks on Tuesday despite talks between officials in Washington in an attempt to reach a deal.
Lebanon is the victim of this US-Israeli conflict of interests. Netanyahu had popular Israeli support for the initial assault on Hizbullah as a justified and necessary response to prolonged cross-border missile attacks. As the war went on, with intensifying worldwide consequences, the wider Netanyahu strategy has come under greater question in Israeli domestic politics– as in US politics too. His model of perpetual Israeli war associated with regional hegemony under US tutelage is increasingly rejected; the refusal of Palestinian rights and statehood remains quite unacceptable to Arab states which refuse normal relations with Israel.
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It is time for Europe to part company decisively with this Israeli strategy and the Trump administration’s miscalculated war against Iran. France’s convening of the UN Security Council to consider Israel’s attack on Lebanon should set the scene for a much more vigorous EU diplomatic effort to bring the war to an end.
