Netanyahu bets on Lebanon to justify his forever wars
Contrasting
the displaced in Israel and Lebanon
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Israel may soon return tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes along the border with Lebanon, with or without a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
The return of the evacuees would allow Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu to tout a significant success in his 13-month-long war in
Gaza and Lebanon, even if it may be short-lived without a ceasefire, if not in an
equitable negotiated resolution of Israel’s disputes with Lebanon and the
Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu has long insisted that military force rather
than negotiations would free the 100 hostages still held by Hamas and ensure
the return of evacuees to their homes in northern Israel.
In September, Mr. Netanyahu added the return of the
evacuees to his war goals, which included the freeing of the hostages, the
destruction of Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza would no longer serve as a
launching pad for Palestinian resistance groups.
The hostages were among 250 people, mostly civilians and
non-combatants, kidnapped by Hamas last year during its October 7 attack that
sparked the Gaza and Lebanon wars.
With more
than 100 hostages swapped a year ago for Palestinians incarcerated in
Israel, Mr. Netanyahu has yet to demonstrate that force is a solution. He may
see Lebanon as his opportunity to do so.
Israel’s
devastation of Gaza
“This has proven to be a
delusional argument that has already cost dozens of hostages their lives.
Israel has invaded almost every corner of the Gaza Strip, from Rafah in the
south to Beit Hanoun in the north. It has killed the entire senior leadership
of Hamas… It has destroyed tens of
thousands of homes and rendered entire areas of the coastal enclave
uninhabitable. But none of that has led to a change in the conditions for a
hostage deal,” said Haaretz journalist Amir Tibon.
Qatar suggested in recent days that Mr. Netanyahu’s emphasis
on military force had all but sabotaged Gaza ceasefire talks by suspending
its efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas until the two parties
demonstrated “their willingness and seriousness” to end the war in Gaza.
Qatar, one of three mediators alongside Egypt and the United
States, was the key conduit to Hamas in what were indirect talks between Israel
and Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu’s confidence that military operations may soon
allow for the return of the evacuees and Qatar’s suspension of mediation may be
the first Middle East-related outcomes of Donald J. Trump’s electoral victory
in the United States.
Qatar wants to ensure that it does not get wrong-footed by
an Israeli campaign supported by Republican lawmakers that accuses
the Gulf state of failing to pressure Hamas to accept a temporary ceasefire
and release of hostages rather than a permanent halt to the war and another
prisoner exchange.
Credit:
ABS-CBN
At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu, the only world leader
reportedly to have spoken
to Mr. Trump three times in the week since he won the US election, may be
encouraged by the president-elect’s earlier advice that Israel should “finish
up and get it done quickly” before he takes office on January 20.
Israel’s suggestion that it may be able to create an
environment secure enough for the return of the evacuees without a formal halt
to the fighting takes on added significance in advance of this week’s litmus
test of what leverage the Biden administration retains and wishes to wield in
its waning days.
Last month, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary
of State Antony J. Blinken gave
Israel until November 13 to boost access to humanitarian aid in Gaza or
risk having some US military assistance cut off. There is little
indication that Israel has complied.
Israeli media reports suggest that the administration may
quietly stick to its guns.
An Israeli
Caterpillar D9 bulldozer clears land. Credit: Ynetnews
The State Department has reportedly held up approval of the
sale of 134 Caterpillar D9 bulldozers used by the Israeli military to destroy
and flatten residential buildings and other structures in Gaza, the West Bank,
and Lebanon.
Col. Yaniv Malka, an Israeli military commander in southern
Lebanon, told the BBC on a visit to an unidentified Lebanese village most of
the Hezbollah fighters had left, leaving behind “dozens of houses (that) were
booby trapped. When we went house to house, we discovered booby-traps and
weapons. We had no
choice but to destroy them.”
Halting the bulldozer delivery could complicate Mr.
Netanyahu’s hopes of returning evacuees to the Lebanese borders.
Israeli military sources said their return was dependent,
among other things, on Israel’s ability to clear thousands of hectares of dense
thicket that conceal Hezbollah bunkers and weapons depots near Lebanon’s border
with Israel.
Israel is seeking to clear a five-kilometre-deep swath of
Lebanese land to render Hezbollah’s
short-range missiles incapable of targeting Israeli border settlements.
The delayed bulldozer delivery also threatens to complicate
the construction of a buffer zone on the Gazan side of the Strip’s border with
Israel. The construction ignores the Biden administration’s opposition to any
long-term occupation of Palestinian land or reduction of the territory’s land
mass.
The administration has further delayed delivery of some 2,000-pound
bombs to Israel. Suspended
in May, the US has since delivered half of the 1,300 bombs but halted
delivery of the other half.
Earlier, the administration refused to sell Israel
Apache high-maneuverability attack helicopters or divert to Israel helicopters
ordered by the US Army.
Even so, the administration recently approved
the sale of 1,000 multi-role Joint Light
Tactical Vehicles, or JLTVs, to replace Israel’s ageing fleet of Humvees.
Credit: Crux
Mr. Netanyahu bases his optimism about the return of the
evacuees on the military’s assertion that it has destroyed Hezbollah’s ability to launch
ground attacks against Israel, a key precondition.
Israeli officials assert Hezbollah was planning to assault
Israel the way Hamas attacked it on October 7 last year. Some 1,200 people,
mostly civilians and non-combatants, were killed in the attack.
Three Israeli divisions or up to 45,000 troops, primed to
disrupt any Hezbollah attempt to re-establish itself along the border, would
protect the returning evacuees.
The military has advised Mr. Netanyahu that it had degraded Hezbollah’s
arsenal to the degree that the group has to be economical when deploying
its remaining drones and longer-range missiles and rockets.
In data presented to the government, the military estimated
that “80 per cent of Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal within a range of up to 40
kilometres has been destroyed.”
The data suggested that Hezbollah retained fewer than 1,000
of its 5,000 medium-range missiles and about 10,000 of its 44,000 short-range
rockets.
Military sources said Israel had disrupted the group’s
command and control by killing or wounding 7,500 Hezbollah commanders and
fighters.
With Israeli soldiers conceding that fighting in southern
Lebanon amounts to a guerrilla
war, Hezbollah remains defiant and determined to prevent Mr. Netanyahu from
declaring victory by returning the evacuees to their border homes.
“Only
one thing can stop this war of aggression, and that is the battlefield,"
said Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s newly appointed leader.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct
Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World
with James M. Dorsey.
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