EDITORIAL: Changing the strategic dynamics of its confrontation with Hezbollah for over a week Israel has constantly been climbing the escalation ladder. Last Friday, employing American supplied bunker buster bombs it assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, leader of this Iran allied resistance group, sending shockwaves across the Middle East region and beyond.
Hezbollah’s top commander in southern Lebanon, Ali Karake, along with some other commanders and Iran’s Revolution Guard commander Gen Abbas Nilforoushan also died in the same attack. Israel has continued to pound southern Beirut and some other areas in Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley, killing at least 1,000 people and wounding over 6,000 others till the last count.
A million people — a fifth of the country’s population — have been forced to leave their homes not knowing where to go.
Hassan Nasrallah was a very influential figure in Lebanese politics and highly regarded in the Arab street for standing up to Israel. Under his leadership, Hezbollah ousted Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, and again prevailed over it in the 2006 war. His elimination as well as of several senior commanders is a huge blow to the movement.
Benjamin Netanyahu has described it as an “historic turning point” widely celebrated in the Jewish state, forgetting two important lessons of history. One is that resistance groups can easily replace their slain leaders. Hassan Nasralllah had succeeded Abbas Mousavi, who was also killed along with his wife, a five-year-old son and four others in an Israeli airstrike. Sheikh Naim Qassem has now been named the new Hezbollah chief, while its men have continued to fire missiles into Israel.
Similarly, after the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh by the same enemy during a visit to Tehran, Yahya Sinwar stepped into his shoes.
The other lesson of history is that resistance organisations, especially ideologically-driven ones like Hezbollah and Hamas, make it untenable for a superior military force to win the war, as seen in Afghanistan, Vietnam and some other places. In Gaza, too, despite unleashing a genocidal campaign for a year, Israel has failed to achieve its two key objectives: freeing its hostages and destroying Hamas.
Its escalatory tactics have raised fears of a wider war. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Hassan Nasrallah’s martyrdom “will not go unavenged”. Washington warned on Sunday that if Iran or groups it backs “use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the US will take every necessary measure to defend our people.”
Meanwhile, Pentagon has announced increasing air support capabilities in the Middle East and putting troops on a heightened readiness to deploy in the region. Nonetheless, neither Iran nor the US — just a few weeks away from presidential election — is interested in a direct confrontation.
But Israel keeps trying to draw them in. Each time this expansionist rogue state ups the ante, the day draws closer when one or the other side does something engulfing the entire region in a conflagration.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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