KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Netanyahu’s strategy involves escalating military actions in Lebanon under the guise of “de-escalation through escalation.”
- The displacement of settlers reflects growing insecurity, pushing Netanyahu to take decisive action against Hezbollah amid internal pressures.
- Hezbollah’s shift to a more aggressive posture poses risks for a broader conflict, especially with potential Iranian involvement.
- Netanyahu aims to leverage U.S. support by framing the conflict as existential, with indiscriminate actions such as the beepers incident complicating the humanitarian narrative surrounding the violence.
- The dual conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon risk alienating global opinion and highlight the need for a comprehensive peace strategy, contingent on Palestinian statehood.
In the current geopolitical climate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy towards Lebanon raises significant concerns. The ongoing conflict with Hezbollah is marked by disproportionate violence, with Israel escalating its military actions under the guise of a “de-escalation through escalation” policy. This rhetoric serves as a pretext for widespread destruction, targeting not just military but also civilian infrastructures, which are then presented as para-military ones. The underlying objective appears to be a scorched earth approach, currently without a ground invasion and primarily aimed at dragging the United States into a regional war, which would then pave the way for an actual ground invasion — with the Israeli government’s gaze fixed on Iran.
The motivations for Netanyahu’s aggressive stance are multi-faceted. Internally, the exodus of approximately 60,000 settlers from northern Israel underscores a palpable sense of insecurity, as its perpetuation entails a loss of Israeli sovereignty in the north. This displacement is politically precarious for Netanyahu, who faces pressure from radical factions within his government demanding decisive action against Hezbollah, both a political party in Lebanon and a military organisation. The paradox lies in the belief among certain Israeli leaders that Hezbollah might capitulate under military pressure, despite the organization’s historical resilience, Shi’ite culture of glorifying martyrdom, and the continuity of its command structure. These assumptions risk plunging the region into a prolonged conflict that neither party can afford.
Furthermore, the involvement of Hezbollah and its strategic responses cannot be underestimated. Recent missile strikes targeting Israeli cities on an ever-wider range reflect a shift from restraint to a more aggressive posture, possibly catalysed by the escalating violence from Israel. This escalation suggests that Hezbollah is prepared to engage in retaliatory measures that could broaden the conflict significantly, particularly if Israel acts according to a desire for further escalation in the hope of U.S. involvement. The potential for a larger war looms, particularly with implications for Iran’s involvement as it stands ready to support its regional allies.
It should be noted that a war in the geographic region of West Asia (dubbed “Middle East” in Orientalist discourse) is not a war “down there” or “far away” anymore, as many Americans and Europeans are prone to assuming on the basis of obsolete IR configurations. If the war spins out of control —which remains the most plausible scenario in the long term—, the centrality of Iran, a BRICS+ and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) country and a central node for Eurasian integration, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and wider balances and imbalances, complicates potential developments and great power competition in ways yet unforeseen.
Netanyahu’s strategy also appears to leverage U.S. involvement as a means of legitimizing his military actions. By framing the conflict in existential terms, Netanyahu seeks to coerce American support, effectively positioning the U.S. as an ally in a broader regional confrontation. In an election period, this dynamic raises questions about the implications of U.S. military backing in a conflict characterized by heavy civilian casualties and extensive infrastructural damage, given the ruptures and cleavages within the Democratic Party.
The dual fronts of conflict in Gaza and Lebanon complicate the situation further. The perceived need to address both theatres simultaneously reveals a strategy aimed at consolidating power within Israel while attempting to diminish Hezbollah’s influence, including Hezbollah’s political influence within Lebanese society. However, this approach risks alienating not only the Lebanese population but also global opinion, which increasingly questions the humanitarian implications of such military actions. The narrative of anti-terrorism is being increasingly scrutinized in light of the apparent disregard for civilian lives, something reflected in the political climate within the United Nations. The beeper explosions in Lebanon, followed by explosions of radios, solar panels, and other electronic hardware, cannot but be by definition indiscriminate, with all that this entails under international law.
The moral and strategic calculus underpinning Netanyahu’s policies must therefore be critically examined. The strategy seems predicated on a form of moral attrition, betting on which population—Israeli or Lebanese—will first call for peace; or, alternatively, further escalation. However, the durability of Hezbollah and its ideological commitment pose a significant counterweight to Israeli military objectives. Here, the question of morale is paramount, together with the question of the employment of yet-to-be-used missile systems of range capabilities which cannot be compared to the 2006 war.
The fact that Netanyahu faces political, and potential legal, problems at home should not be underestimated, together with the political dynamics in the Israeli parliament. For Benjamin Netanyahu, at the present juncture, peace and ceasefire entail political self-destruction, as most analysts of Israeli politics assert. Implicitly, Netanyahu’s medium-term approach may indeed reflect a strategy aimed at dragging the U.S. to a regional war the latter declares it cannot currently afford on the basis of a pernicious dilemma to be tacitly posed to U.S. leadership in this electoral period, as the situation escalated further: “now the threat for Israel has become existential; either you join our strife to counter it, or we are left with no other choice but to employ the nuclear option, once thought of as primarily a deterrent.” This speculative dilemma is one the United States would be particularly challenged to properly address.
In the final analysis, long-term peace for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Ansar Allah (Houthis) etc. has a very specific precondition: a fully-fledged Palestinian state, in accordance with the respective United Nations resolutions. To the extent that Israeli leadership explicitly rejects this (or describes sub-state desiderata, in the best of cases), peace does not seem likely in the long term — irrespective of the comprehensive escalation’s precise timing, which is less relevant than the question of its overall avoidability. To the extent that Israeli leadership might indeed be betting on an escalation that would drag the U.S. into a wider conflict, it becomes obvious that peace becomes an evermore distant possibility.
*Sotiris Mitralexis holds a doctorate in political science and international relations; he works at University College London as a research fellow.