Hizballah and Israel Five Years After the Lebanon War
Five years have passed since the Second Lebanon War. Five years since the burnt forests, the Katyusha rockets, the blazing sunlight, and bitter lessons of that summer in 2006. A half-decade on, Israel has improved both its battle readiness and its knowledge of the enemy. As for Hizballah, it is both stronger yet paradoxically also more vulnerable and isolated than it was back then.
Hizballah and its allies constructed a story of “divine victory” from the 2006 events. This claim was hollow as Israel’s mistakes and shortcomings were many and amply detailed in Judge Eliyahu Winograd’s investigation.
Still, southern Lebanon was left devastated by the war. Hizballah had no way to prevent this. The movement lost at least 500 fighters dead. It also lost open control of the border area with Israel. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, admitted in the months afterwards that had he known of the consequences he would never have launched the initial operation to kidnap the Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers which led to the war.
The 2006 war was, however, but a single engagement in a larger conflict pitting Iran and its allies and clients against the West and its regional allies. The war failed to settle this issue in any significant way. After the ceasefire Israel and Hizballah remained arrayed against one another along the border. Both sides began a rapid process of review and rebuilding. In Hizballah’s case, this clearly contradicted UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war and promised that Hizballah would not be allowed to return to the south and rebuild its fortifications there.
Today, the IDF has significantly improved its stance vis-a-vis Hizballah. Tactics and equipment have been modified, training has focused on specific countermeasures, and there is a far higher rate of combat readiness.
Yet Hizballah too has vastly increased its capabilities. It now possesses 60,000 short range missiles aimed at Israel. It has also, according to reliable sources, significantly improved its medium and long-range missile capabilities. The movement’s possession of the M-600 missile system gives it the ability to hit populated areas in central Israel. It is reported also to possess a number of Scud-D missiles which might possibly strike targets anywhere in Israel.
The most significant change in the situation since the 2006 war relates to Hizballah’s relative political standing. A creation and client of non-Arab Iran, Hizballah posed in 2006 as the representative of all Arabs and Muslims in fighting against Israel. Paradoxically, since the war Hizballah has grown politically and physically more powerful. But its claim to represent a general Arab or Muslim interest, as opposed to a particular Shia and pro-Iranian one, looks more and more flimsy.
In 2006, the movement was an independent political and paramilitary element in a country ruled by a pro-Western coalition government. Following the war, Hizballah launched a campaign to bring down and discredit this government. This has now been achieved and Hizballah is the dominant force in Lebanon’s government. The line marking where Hizballah ends and the “legitimate” Lebanese state begins is hard to identify and in many ways does not exist at all.
Israel is more sensitive to the deaths of its citizens and citizen-soldiers than is Hisb’Allah (The Party of God). This simple fact will cause both sides to fight much harder than either wishes to do. Lebanon will be destroyed as Israel suffers from Hizb’Allah’s “improved” fighting capacity. It is only this insight that holds Iran at bay, not wishing to lose its confrontation ally.
The big issue – not mentioned – is Turkey. Will Turkey try to reassert its pre-World War I hegemony in the region and present Israel and the West with a completely different Middle East dilemma? Will the defeat of Assad in Syria and the rise of the Sunni majority there lead to an axis of power including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Turkey?
hizbollah does not care at all about the civilians its “fighters” hide behind. This is an organization composed of cowardly terrorists. The lebanese will have to disarm and destroy hizbollah. Israel can help. This may be the moment because of the turmoil currently available in syria. The United States and Israel as well as lebanon should do all that is feasible to contribute to the collapse of the asad regime and the disintegration of syria, a fake state if there ever was one. Once syria is divided into half a dozen mutually hostile statelets there will be less danger to Israel and less support for hizbollah. hizbollah itself will then collapse and hopefully split up into factions that will fight one another.
Missiles are not the only factor. The only way to stop them as proven by the last war is by a full scale ground invasion.
I think that Israel made the same mistake that it did in Sinai in 1973. They underestimated Egyptian infantry in weapons, tactics and fighting spirit. As a result Israeli tanks suffered high losses. Air power will be limited against infantry in Lebanon where they can hide in all kinds of ways.
One advantage Israel has this time is they no longer need to carefully distinguish between Hezbolla and the rest of Lebanon. They have already declared this policy. They also already declared that they will hit targets hidden in civilian structures. Bottom line is that the ground pounders are going to have to slug it out.
“Yet Hizballah too has vastly increased its capabilities. It now possesses 60,000 short range missiles aimed at Israel. It has also, according to reliable sources, significantly improved its medium and long-range missile capabilities. The movement’s possession of the M-600 missile system gives it the ability to hit populated areas in central Israel. It is reported also to possess a number of Scud-D missiles which might possibly strike targets anywhere in Israel.”
Hezbollah and Hamas have tried to smuggle in a large number of Iranian-made C-704 anti-ship shore-to-sea missiles with a range of 35 km that could put at risk Israeli vessels at sea as well as strategic infrastructure targets near Ashkelon. This poses not only a serious threat to Israeli warships in the area, but also to American warships that may be steaming close to the coast of Lebanon. You can read more about this threat here:
http://defense-update.com/20110315_victoria_arms_ship.html
We don’t know how many cruise missiles have already been smuggled to Hezbollah by both Iran and Syria, but the danger is growing and we ignore it at our own risk. And as for the United Nations “peacekeepers” that are in the area and are supposed to stop this smuggling, they’re as useless as ever. These missiles will cause major problems for all shipping in the area if there is another war between Israel and Hezbollah, but more so for any American ships trying to assist the Israelis. I sure hope the Close-in-Weapons Systems (CIWS) on board our ships work.
The Hezbollah in Iran Syria and Lebanon are the same. There is a Hezbollah axis . It is more potent than Al-Qaeda. The people of Iran are at war with them from within.
I can’t agree with the proposition that Hezbollah is “politically more isolated, more exposed, and hence more vulnerable.” Indeed I see no evidence to support any of those words. Legitimacy in the middle east comes from being able to kill one’s foes and get away with it. Hezbollah has more than aptly demonstrated a capacity to do this. Killing the President of Lebanon just showed how powerful and therefore how legitimate they are, “look we’ll killed the most powerful man in the country and followed it up by taking over the country, you have a problem with that?”
Nor are they are isolated because they control a country and have the support of two powerful allies with more in the making, like Egypt, Libya, Palestine, probably Turkey and a couple lefty South American states. Whereas their enemies are increasingly isolated like Israel, or hopelessly confused and stupid like the US. Everyone else is for sale and the bad guys are the only buyers.
As for exposed and vulnerable, to who? They held off Israel longer than any other Arab army. Big deal they lost 500 out of 2,000 men. With Iranian money they can recruit a million in the Islamic world.
Your article appears to be wishful thinking, I only wish it were not.
Why doesn’t Israel just target Iran if its so worried about its safety? Answer: because they are one and the same. Both colonial entities created by the same empire. The victims? those who have (and have had) the misfortune of residing on the lands which the “chosen ones” covet IE: The Levantine Arabs.
Oh, and btw, i love the bias in the article. you point out hezbollahs UN resolution infractions (I’m no supporter of Iran or Shias) but fail to point out Israel’s 450 infractions, the USS liberty attack, the king david hotel bombing, the horribly disproportionate amount of duel citizen Israel’s and Jews in the US government, and administrations that constantly bankrupt, and plunge America into war after war, for the century or so.
Hard to take somebody seriously when one of their stated grievances is “the horribly disproportionate amount of duel citizen Israel’s and Jews in the US government”. The rest are not much better. If you think any of that balances out all the hostage taking and mass murder, you’re wrong.
No outside power could possibly have screwed up Lebanon as badly as the Lebanese have.
Few questions for you. Pick a) Lebanon or b) Israel
Since Israels founding in 1948 which of the above has been responsible for more Arab deaths in war including civil war?
Which one has been responsible for the deaths of more US servicemen? (even including the Liberty accident)
Which one is currently harboring the murderers of its own Prime Minister?
Which one of the above actually carried out the slaughter of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatilla camps?
Which one of the above is allied with US enemies Iran and Syria?
Which one of the above keeps Palestinian arabs confined to refugee camps within its own territory and denies them basic rights?
Which one of the above forbids Palestinian arabs from working in the fields of medicine, law and engineering?
Which one of the above has a government system in which the top three offices President, Speaker, and Prime Minister are selected based on religious affiliation or sect and not by number of votes?
Which country above has and tolerates within its territory a military much stronger than its own army and not controlled by the government (and hence the citizens)?
Which ranks lower for freedom of the press and is only in the “partly free” category by freedomhouse?
Which is a former French colony?
Hint: its the same answer for all of the above.
I could do this all day. Remember you are talking with Americans here. If Lebanon wants to make nice with the US it has a long way to go. Oh that dual citizenship crap is debunked anti semitic conspiracy nonsense and says a lot about where you are coming from. I have seen those lists Feith, Wolfowitz et all are not dual citizens they are Jews, which is what you really mean.
Let’s not forget Israel’s 450 infractions (that all?), the USS liberty attack(1967), the king david hotel bombing(1947), the horribly disproportionate amount of duel (not dual) citizen’s Israelis and and Jews in the US government (yah, them damn duel citizen Israelis/Jews in the US government, you know the one the Israeli/Jew conspiracy to run the US government and get us into foreign wars like Afghanistan) Yah, we should also include all them Jews who immigrated from their home countries to Israel (thereby invading it). We should also include the invasion of that land 3500 years ago where they forcibly invaded the land slaughtered its inhabitants and set up their own (jew) government. Look at how they all left the peaceful Moslem/Arab countries in 1948 and all immigrated to Israel (another hostile Jew act). Let’s not forget the blood libel, that they invented AIDS, their trafficking in human body parts for transplants, causing the Indonesian tsunami, them living in Arab neighborhoods in Israel just to shield themselves from attack, or the fact that they shoot children directly in the head at point blank range every chance they get. Let’s face it folks they are just point blankers. Or the fact that their flag has just one star, ours has one star and the moon.
” the king david hotel bombing(1947)”
adumb left out the Ten Plagues