Lebanon

A Victory for Whom? Lessons from the 1982 and 2006 Lebanon Wars

June 12, 2018

By Jessica “Zhanna” Malekos Smith

Israeli troops in South Lebanon, June 1982 (Credit Image: P.mielen, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

‘Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of people will not fade with time.’[1] Herodotus

Although Israel achieved a tactical victory in the First Lebanon War, it was a ‘strategic mishap’ because it catalyzed Hezbollah’s formation, failed to produce a durable peace agreement with Lebanon and set in motion the Second Lebanon War of 2006. Here, the word tactical refers to the Israeli Defense Force’s military victory in forcing the Lebanese government to expel Yasser Arafat and purge Beirut of PLO members.[2] This essay evaluates the causes and outcome of the two Lebanon wars.

The Lebanon Civil War (1975-1990)

First, applying Herodotus’ recommendation: A proper historia of these wars must feature Lebanon’s 1975 Civil War; for what use is a sail boat’s mast and boom if it is not attached to the mainsail?

Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975[3] and for 15 years the nation was caught in a cycle of conflict and unstable political settlements.[4] Internally, the Lebanese government’s consociational democracy – a system of power sharing between diverse ethno-religious groups – had collapsed after becoming imbalanced with migration shifts.[5] Externally, Farid El Khazen cites competing strategic interests, for ‘throughout the war, external actors, particularly the regional actors that took an active part in the war, [Israel, Syria, Iran and the PLO], had as much at stake as the Lebanese parties themselves.’[6] His observation that conflict exists in internal and external dimensions deftly captures the spirit of the Lebanon Wars.[7]

The 1982 Lebanon War

For two decades after Israel’s founding, the state’s involvement in Lebanon had been kept to a minimum under a limited action policy.[8] Stemming from Israel’s 1981 election and Syria’s increasing military presence in Lebanon, however, this policy was reversed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.[9] Although personality politics did accelerate military action, it was not the sole factor.[10] Any victor of the 1981 election would have grappled with choosing between military action, or inaction, as Israel’s northern border was besieged.[11] Prime Minister Begin faced two decisions: If Israel took no action, ‘it would abandon a two-decade-old commitment to oppose Syrian involvement in Lebanon. On the other hand, if Israel moved to deter Syria from intervening on the side of the Christians, it would in fact save the PLO-Left coalition and abandon its own Christian allies.’[12] Thus, the 1982 war was caused by a combination of political, social and religious factors.

Israel’s strategic objectives were to (1) solidify an alliance with the Christian Maronites to eradicate the Lebanese-Palestinian terrorist network;[13] (2) remove Yasser Arafat from power; (3) protect Israel’s northern border; and (4) defeat the Syrians in Lebanon.[14] Begin and Sharon, however, held different visions of achieving this.[15] According to Hala Jaber, ‘Israel’s invasion was the brain-child of Ariel Sharon[.]’[16] While Begin held ‘narrower military objectives’ in leveraging the strength and power of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), Sharon envisioned a more aggressive campaign to eradicate the PLO.[17]

These competing visions were harmonized under the July 1981 ceasefire agreement.

Anver Yaniv and Robert J. Lieber explain, ‘Begin’s Cabinet needed a reasonably acceptable pretext for moving into Lebanon. . . . Israeli officials repeatedly presented the July 1981 cease-fire as a matter of linkage. Either the PLO respected the cease-fire on all fronts or the cease-fire was null and void.’[18]

Apart from the involvement of regional actors, the United States and USSR were also involved.[19] In 1982 Sharon visited Washington DC to speak with US Secretary of State Alexander Haig, about the planned offensive.[20] Haig cautioned that there must be an internationally recognized provocation to justify an invasion.[21] Critical of the US’ discussions with Israel, Zeev Schiff writes ‘[a]lthough the Americans sounded circumlocutory warnings for public consumption, the American nay was so feeble that the Israelis regarded it merely as a diplomatic maneuver designed to exonerate the United States should the military operation go sour.’[22] According to Schiff, Israeli leaders opined that the US would support the operation if it undermined the USSR’s allies.[23]

On 3 June 1982, this provocation basis was met when the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, was shot in the head by a Palestinian gunman.[24] Despite the Israeli intelligence forces’ knowledge that the gunman was not part of the PLO, but a dissident faction of Abu Nidal, Prime Minister Begin publicly declared it to be a violation of Israel’s cease-fire agreement with the PLO.[25] As a result, Israel commenced its invasion of Lebanon the following day. [26] Israel mounted a successful aerial offensive and land campaign against Lebanon in Operation Peace for Galilee.[27] In the end, the war was a tactical victory for the IDF because it forced the Lebanese government to remove Arafat and purge Beirut of PLO members.[28]

Israel’s strategic objective to secure a durable peace with Lebanon, however, was a failed effort. Why? Hala Jaber explains ‘Sharon traumatized Lebanon, shocked the Israeli public and succeeded in creating a new enemy to harry Israel’s northern border: Hezbollah[.]’[29] Israel allowed the Phalange militia to enter the Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatilla, which led to the massacre of refugees, and galvanized the formation of the Lebanese National Resistance[30] and Hezbollah.[31] As Ahron Bregman of King’s College London War Studies notes in Israel’s Wars: A History Since 1947, the aftermath of the Palestinian refugee massacre resulted in Sharon’s removal from office and the resignation of senior military commander, Colonel Eli Geva, during the conflict.[32] By 1983, Hezbollah formed its first council (shoura), established a newspaper, Al-Ahed (The Pledge) in 1984, and by 1985 Hezbollah published its manifesto on Islamic Resistance.[33] Although a peace agreement was entered into by Israel and Lebanon, it was a short-lived gain because Syria coerced Lebanon’s leader, Amin Gemayel, to repeal it.[34] Overall, Israel’s conduct in 1982 unintentionally triggered the growth of the Islamic Resistance Movement and conditions leading to the 2006 war.[35]

The 2006 Lebanon War

This 34-day war was caused by a combination of unresolved political, social and religious grievances from the 1982 war. The primary actors were Israel, Iran and Hezbollah, and the fighting was concentrated in Lebanon and Israel.[36] Despite Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah steadily escalated with fringe conflicts.[37] On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah initiated war when it crossed into Israel and killed and kidnapped several soldiers.[38] In retaliation, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) commenced Operation Specific Gravity against Hezbollah.[39] The IDF also mounted a ground campaign to combat Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks and dispersed guerilla network.[40] Both sides sustained high casualties. Israel was struck with 3,970 rockets as it sought to weed out guerilla fighters. [41] Schmuel Tzabag characterizes this conflict as an ‘asymmetrical confrontation between a sovereign state [Israel] and a guerrilla organization [Hezbollah] controlling part of a neighbouring state [Lebanon] and operating against its will by means of terrorism[.]’[42] On 14 August 2006, the UN intervened in brokering a ceasefire agreement.[43]

The war’s outcome, however, is shrouded in controversy. While it ended in a ceasefire, some scholars credit Israel’s military for deterring a future war with Hezbollah, whereas Hezbollah regards it as a victory for its resistance strategy.[44] Regardless, Israel initiated the Winograd Commission to investigate why its military reached a tactical impasse with Hezbollah.[45] The Commission found that ‘Israeli military officers and Israel’s political leadership placed severe restraints on ground action because of the fear of repeating the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon and the war of attrition that followed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.’[46] For Matt M. Matthews, the IDF suffered a tactical defeat because it was ‘confused by its new doctrine, soldiers were deficient in training and command, and senior officers seemed woefully unprepared to fight a “real war.”’[47] Overall, Israel’s military and civilian leadership lacked a unified vision in 2006 for combatting this asymmetrical threat.[48]

Conclusion

Although Israel achieved a tactical victory in 1982, in terms of achieving its strategic objectives, history shows it was a strategic mishap. Not only was the peace agreement with Lebanon short-lived, but the handling of the conflict also served to precipitate the emergence of Hezbollah and conditions for the 2006 war.

This article has been updated and republished on Strife Blog with the author’s permission. It was originally published on Small Wars Journal.

Jessica “Zhanna” Malekos Smith is a M.A. candidate with King’s College London, Department of War Studies. Previously, she served as a Captain in the US Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Prior to the military, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Jessica holds a J.D. from the University of California, Davis, and B.A. from Wellesley College, where she was a Fellow of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute. Opinions expressed in her articles are those of the author’s and not those of the US Department of Defense or US Air Force.

Notes:

[1] ‘Herodotus Quotes’, The Famous People, https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/herodotus-1626.php (May 2018).

[2] Farid El Khazen, ‘Ending Conflict in Wartime Lebanon’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40:1, (2004), p. 68.

[3] ‘Lebanon’, Globalsecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/lebanon.htm (May 2018).

[4] El Khazen, ‘Conflict’, p. 66.

[5] Joel Krieger, ‘Consociational Democracy’, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195117394.001.0001/acref-9780195117394-e-0156?rskey=ujOyS9&result=152 (May 2018).

[6] El Khazen, ‘Conflict’, p. 65.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Anver Yaniv and Robert J. Lieber ‘Personal Whim or Strategic Imperative?’, International Security, 8:2, (1983), p. 118.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid. at p. 127.

[13] KCL WSO, ‘The Lebanon Wars’, (May 2018).

[14] ‘Lebanon’, Globalsecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/lebanon.htm (May 2018).

[15] Yaniv, ‘Whim’, pp. 131-132.

[16] Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, (Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 7.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Yaniv, ‘Whim’, pp. 135.

[19] Ibid. at pp. 134-135.

[20] KCL WSO, ‘The Lebanon Wars’.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Zeev Schiff, ‘The Green Light’, Foreign Policy, 50, (1983), p. 73.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Yaniv, ‘Whim’, pp. 135.

[25] Shlomo Argov, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1422910/Shlomo-Argov.html (June 2018)

[26] KCL WSO, ‘The Lebanon Wars’.

[27] ‘Lebanon’, Globalsecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/lebanon.htm (May 2018).

[28] El Khazen, ‘Conflict’, p. 68.

[29] Jaber, Hezbollah, pp. 7-8.

[30] Ibid. at p. 19.

[31] Ibid. at p. 220.

[32] Ahron Bregman, Israel’s Wars: A History Since 1947, (Routledge, 2010), p. 177.

[33] Jaber, Hezbollah, pp. 220-21.

[34] El Khazen, ‘Conflict’, p. 68.

[35] Jaber, Hezbollah, pp. 7-8.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Anthony Cordesman, et. al., Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War, (CSIS Press, 2007), pp. 24-25.

[38] Ibid. at p. 4.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] KCL WSO, ‘The Lebanon Wars’.

[42] Schmuel Tzabag, ‘Ending the Second Lebanon War’, Israel Affairs, 19:4, (2013), p. 640.

[43] KCL WSO, ‘The Lebanon Wars’.

[44] Matt M. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared, (OP 26, 2008), pp. 1-2.

[45] Cordesman, ‘2006’, p. 6.

[46] Ibid. at p. 7.

[47] Matthews, Unprepared, p. 1.

[48] Cordesman, ‘2006’, p. 7.

Image Source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3218834

Bibliography:

Ahron Bregman, Israel’s Wars: A History Since 1947, (Routledge, 2010).

Anthony Cordesman with George Sullivan and William D. Sullivan, Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War, (CSIS Press, 2007).

Anver Yaniv and Robert J. Lieber ‘Personal Whim or Strategic Imperative? The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon’, International Security, 8:2, (1983).

Farid El Khazen, ‘Ending Conflict in Wartime Lebanon: Reform, Sovereignty and Power 1976–88’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40:1, (2004).

Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, (Columbia University Press, 1997).

‘Herodotus Quotes’, The Famous People, https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/herodotus-1626.php (May 2018).

King’s College London War Studies Online: Unit 2, ‘The Lebanon Wars’, (May 2018).

‘Lebanon’, Globalsecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/lebanon.htm (May 2018).

Matt M. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, (OP 26, 2008).

Schmuel Tzabag, ‘Ending the Second Lebanon War: The Interface between the Political and Military Echelons in Israel’, Israel Affairs, 19:4, (2013).

Zeev Schiff, ‘The Green Light’, Foreign Policy, 50, (1983).

Lessons from Israel’s Security Zone: from ‘Pumpkin’ to the Present

September 5, 2016

By: Lauren Mellinger

Ten years ago, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 brought the Second Lebanon War to an end. Almost immediately journalists, historians and policy analysts began grappling with the significance of the 34-day conflict. Yet to date, the pivotal events in the years that preceded that war – namely, the 15-year period between 1985 and 2000 in which Israeli troops maintained a security zone in southern Lebanon before unilaterally withdrawing all Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in May 2000 – have largely been overlooked.

In his recent war memoir Pumpkin Flowers: A Soldier’s Story, author Matti Friedman begins to fill this gap.[1] Friedman’s own experiences as an IDF solider serving in southern Lebanon took place in the final years of the security zone – at a time when there was a growing and vocal movement within Israel advocating for withdrawing from Lebanon.

During his service, Friedman was stationed at Pumpkin (Dla’at in Hebrew), one of dozens of fortified hilltop outposts that comprised the security zone.[2] The self-proclaimed first historian of the outpost, Friedman provides a unique account of this period in a memoir that is part a history of the war and part-political analysis, recounting the experiences of a generation who grew up under the promises of a ‘new Middle East,’[3] only to find themselves in southern Lebanon, observing as the seeds of twenty-first century warfare were planted. Yet, this period in Israeli – and for that matter, in the region’s history – remains incredibly relevant. Indeed, as Friedman argues in Pumpkin Flowers, ‘It is hardly possible to understand current events without understanding these ones [the Security Zone years], and yet they have been overlooked.’[4]

Israel’s troubled history in Lebanon: 1982 – 2016

Prior to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee, cross-border incursions perpetrated by Palestinian terrorist organisations based in southern Lebanon were a frequent occurrence. Though Israel ultimately achieved the mission’s stated purpose of routing the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)[5] from its base of operations in southern Lebanon, in their place emerged a new, and ultimately more formidable adversary: Hezbollah.

Three years later, on January 14, 1985, then-Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin announced the cabinet’s decision to deploy IDF troops to maintain a 328-square mile buffer zone in southern Lebanon, to prevent the area from being used as a staging ground for acts of terrorism targeting northern Israel. For the next 15 years, those residing in northern Israel were able to maintain a relatively normal life, free of the fear of terrorist infiltration, (though they were still subject to occasional attacks from mortars and rockets launched from within the security zone by Hezbollah). Moreover, as a result of the relative quiet, residents in Israel’s north benefited from a thriving tourism industry during this period.[6]

But this improved quality of life came at a price. Between 1985 and May 2000, Hezbollah attacks on Israeli troops stationed in the security zone became the organisation’s raison d’être. The IDF lost an average of two dozen troops annually, which according to the army’s estimates amounted to 559 fallen soldiers, including 256 in combat operations.

When the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah proclaimed an Arab victory. Indeed in a now infamous speech, given on May 26, 2000 – Hezbollah’s declared ‘Victory Day’ – Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah remarked, ‘Israel . . . is feebler than a spider’s web.’

But following the withdrawal the newfound ‘quiet’ along the border would not last, and in July 2006, the Second Lebanon War broke out in response to a Hezbollah provocation. Since the 34-day conflict ended in August 2016, the security situation along the Israel-Lebanon border has been governed by mutual deterrence, with neither Israel nor Hezbollah eager for the next round of fighting, despite Hezbollah’s efforts to enhance its military capabilities in the interim.

Meanwhile, the events that took place in the security zone between 1985 and 2000 foretold the type of conflicts that the United States and coalition forces would soon find themselves immersed in following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Why the security zone years are worth remembering

Visitors to Israel are familiar with the country’s painstaking efforts to memorialise its military history, especially the service and sacrifice of Israeli troops. Yet bookended by two wars, to date, the 15-year period in which Israeli troops were stationed in southern Lebanon still has no official name, and no official national monument. The ‘security zone’ era, as it is referred to, seems to have been largely forgotten. Yet, there are several reasons why the events that took place during this period are worthy of greater consideration.

Fertile training ground for new techniques

In the first place, during this period, attacks on IDF troops stationed in southern Lebanon became Hezbollah’s raison d’être, and the organisation developed a series of tactics which they employed against Israeli troops in the security zone that presaged the type of counterinsurgency that would confront U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Friedman argues, ‘[s]uicide car bombs, roadside explosives, booby-trapped boulders, videotaped attacks, isolated outposts, hit-and-run, a modern military on hostile territory fighting a long, hopeless war against a weaker but more determined enemy for unclear and ultimately unattainable goals – before Iraq, before Afghanistan, there was this protracted affair in Lebanon.’[7]

Many of these tactics would eventually be exported outside of the security zone. After the Israeli government deported 415 members of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to Lebanon in December 1992, they wound up receiving training in suicide terrorism from Hezbollah. Eventually they were allowed to return and in April 1993, Hamas carried out the organisation’s first suicide attack in the West Bank – a trend that would continue for much of the next decade. And it was Hezbollah’s claim of victory in May 2000 following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal that, according to Brig. Gen. (ret) Yossi Kuperwasser, served as ‘wind in the sails’ of Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank, when the Second Intifada broke out four months later.

That the Security Zone in essence served as an incubator for a range of innovative techniques – that only a few short years after Israel’s withdrawal would be employed by actors throughout the region, giving modern armies a run for their money – renders this period a worthwhile case study for the IDF and Israel’s political leadership, as well as for other countries who have already embarked on, or are contemplating, similar military engagements.

Civil society v. the security establishment

A second reason why the history of the security zone era is relevant today, is that the decision to unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon remains a unique instance in Israeli history where a grass-roots movement (led by the Four Mothers Movement) held greater influence on national security policymaking than the military establishment, whose assessment on security policy is typically regarded as sacrosanct in Israeli domestic politics.[8] Indeed, prior to 1997 the Israeli public had largely been shielded from the day-to-day events in the security zone, for a host of reasons, including the fact that military reservists were largely not among those soldiers sent to Lebanon, a tight grip on the media (mainly by keeping the security zone off-limits to reporters), and the relatively low-level of casualties on an annual basis.[9]

The turning point came following an incident on the evening of February 4, 1997, where two IDF helicopters carrying troops bound for Lebanon crashed while still in Israeli airspace, resulting in the death of 73 troops. The helicopter incident, together with the emergence of the Four Mothers Movement almost immediately intensified the public interest surrounding the rationale of maintaining the security zone. As Avraham Sela argues, ‘the main achievement of civil society in this case [the security zone] was mobilising the media to develop a public debate which questioned the validity and necessity of the security zone and confronted the security establishment with an alternative rationale and discourse.’[10] Indeed, in the 1999 elections, Ehud Barak campaigned on a promise to ‘return the boys home’ within his first year of office.

It is the relatively short time in which Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon was accomplished, juxtaposed with the ongoing debate surrounding Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in June 1967 which renders the history of the security zone worthy of further examination.

Poor decision-making on national security matters

Third, the security zone years were unfortunately not the last instance of the Israeli political leadership’s adherence to poor decision-making processes when it comes to national security issues. The 15 years in which the IDF was deployed in southern Lebanon uncovered a host of weaknesses in the political leadership’s decision-making and management of national security issues, a number of which have yet to be adequately resolved.

The security zone period was marred by the government’s failure to clearly outline objectives and goals. As Friedman writes, ‘[t]hat’s why this war never had a name – a name would suggest a decision . . . This wasn’t a matter of debate so long as the price wasn’t too high.’[11] This was compounded by the absence of reservists serving in southern Lebanon, and the tight media controls, which taken together impeded the flow of information from the security zone to the Israeli populace as to what exactly was occurring on a day-to-day basis in southern Lebanon.[12] Yet, the political leadership’s failure to state clear objectives and keep the cabinet apprised so as to enable them to make informed decisions occurred again in 2006, and during Israel’s three subsequent wars with Hamas.

Lastly, the lack of sufficient debate within the government is another attribute of the political leadership’s national security decision-making process, prevalent during the security zone years, that has endured. In his account of this period, Friedman argues that prior to the February 1997 helicopter accident, (and apart from brief military operations in southern Lebanon in 1993 and 1996), the security zone had not been a matter seriously debated by the government, and in fact, that ‘there had never quite been a decision to create it in the first place.’[13] Following Operation Protective Edge in 2014, similar claims regarding the lack of sufficient debate on Gaza – and as to what precisely was known to members of the security cabinet prior to the start of the war regarding Hamas’s offensive tunnels – have been brought to light.[14] According to MK Ofer Shelah there was only one meeting discussing Gaza during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s third term, prior to the June 2014 kidnapping of three Israeli teenage boys in the West Bank, the event that precipitated Operation Protective Edge.[15] Similar claims as to the lack of proper discussion of the threat from Gaza have been made by others in the Israeli national security establishment.

Conclusion

For decades, successive commissions of inquiry have reported deficiencies in the government’s decision-making with respect to national security and have called for improvements to the quality of the discussions in the government. But, problems are still endemic. The political leadership has failed to adequately implement these recommendations. Moreover, the years following Israel’s initial invasion of Lebanon in 1982 have challenged the country’s traditional security concepts of deterrence and military decision – core pillars of the national security doctrine that has existed since Israel’s founding in 1948. During the security zone years, the threat facing the IDF evolved from that of conventional armies on traditional battlefields, to the threat posed by hybrid politico-military organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet, in the years since the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon, the army has utilized reservists, and incorporated more liberal policies regarding media access when engaging in hostilities with these new, formidable adversaries. As a result, when military operations are underway, the Israeli public is now kept abreast of most developments, often as they are unfolding in real time. Yet, the political leadership has done an inadequate job at coordinating the public’s expectations with respect to how the concepts of deterrence and military decision have evolved in this new era dominated largely by asymmetric warfare – a change that began with Israel’s earlier experiences in Lebanon.

The adoption of a new military strategy in August 2015 seeks to remedy a number of these deficiencies. Yet the problem remains that the military does not operate in a vacuum – it remains subject to the decisions handed down by the political leadership. Therefore, it is imperative that building on the publication of the IDF’s new strategy that the political leadership takes the opportunity to reform its decision-making processes in accordance with the recommendations of previous commissions, and enacts a national security strategy that includes coordinating the public’s expectations with the new concepts of deterrence and military decision, while implementing the requisite reforms to its decision-making process on matters of national security. Until that happens, the security zone years should serve as a cautionary tale.

Lauren Mellinger is a doctoral candidate in War Studies at King’s College London and a senior editor of Strife’s blog and journal. Her research specializes in Israeli counterterrorism, foreign policy, and national security decision-making, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can follow her on Twitter @Lauren_M04

Notes:

[1] Matti Friedman, Pumpkin Flowers: A Soldier’s Story (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2016).

[2] Per Israeli military jargon at that time, it was common to name things after produce — hence a range of hilltops in southern Lebanon with names such as Red Pepper, Basil, and Crocus. Floral code words were popular as well – if the code word ‘flowers’ was sent over the radio, that meant there were wounded soldiers. Id, p. 24.

[3] Id; See also Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1993).

[4] Friedman, Pumpkin Flowers, p. 20.

[5] At the time, the PLO was classified as a terrorist organisation by the Israeli government.

[6] See Gal Luft, “Israel’s Security Zone in Lebanon – A Tragedy?” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 7, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 13-20.

[7] Id, p. 20; 30-35.

[8] Avraham Sela, “Civil Society, the Military and National Security: The Case of Israel’s Security Zone in South Lebanon,” Israel Studies, Vol. 12, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 53-78. See Also Yagil Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy: Aversion in a Militarized Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2012), p.71-81.

[9] Friedman, Pumpkin Flowers, p. 179-180. At the time, the rate of casualties in the security zone was on average around two dozen per year.

[10] Sela, p. 54.

[11] Friedman, Pumpkin Flowers, p. 100.

[12] Id., p. 179-180.

[13] Friedman bases his claim on the language used in the cabinet decision from January 1985 that announced a three stage unilateral withdrawal plan for the IDF. According to the cabinet decision, the withdrawal was to occur in three stages, with the timeframe for the latter two stages to be set based on conditions inside Lebanon. Stage 3 called for the army to “deploy along the Israeli-Lebanese international border while maintaining a zone in southern Lebanon where the local forces – the South Lebanon Army – will operate with Israeli army backing.” See Friedman, Pumpkin Flowers, 99. [emphasis added] See also Thomas L. Friedman, “Israel Announces Three-Stage Plan to Leave Lebanon,” The New York Times, January 14, 1985, http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/15/world/israel-announces-three-stage-plan-to-leave-lebanon.html.

[14] Amos Harel, “This Lawmaker Won’t Let the Gaza War be Pushed Under the Rug,” Haaretz, April 24, 2015, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.653167.

[15] Ofer Shelah, HaOmetz LeNatzeach (The Courage to Win) (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2015), p. 34. [Hebrew]

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Israel_Lebanon_Border.JPG

A third Lebanon War?

September 22, 2015

By Matthew Williams:

The volatile relationship between Israel and Hizbullah has worsened since early 2015 and has threatened to deteriorate into open war. A Third Lebanon War would have significant repercussions not only for Israel, but for the entire region. Lebanon faces a major crisis: it now contains over 1-1.5 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees; and its neighbour Syria is in the midst of a civil war that has left an estimated 240,000 dead,

Tension is growing between Israel and Hizbullah. This was underlined by the violence between the two parties in January-February 2015, which left two Israeli soldiers dead and threatened to escalate into open war. This tension could be the catalyst for the breakdown of the Lebanese government’s capability to control the civil war already spilling over into Lebanon. This is illustrated by the refugee crisis, the presence of extremist cells like ISIS in Lebanon, and the operations of Hizbullah and the Lebanese government forces against such groups.

While a third war has failed to materialise thus far, a future crisis may await in the Levant; indeed, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman has declared that a third war is ‘inevitable’. From Netanyahu’s perspective, the Arab Spring provoked insecurity across the region and Israel had to respond. The insecurity was brought about by the original phase of protests and upheavals that constituted the Arab Spring, the subsequent deterioration of many of these protests into protracted violent conflicts (as exemplified by Syria), and the rise of Iranian influence and involvement in such civil wars across the region. From the outset Netenyahu’s response has been to consolidate Israel’s control over the West Bank by expanding settlements, increasing military spending, strongly condemning Iranian involvement in these various conflicts, and reinforcing ‘the bunker mentality of Israel’s right-wing government’[1] in what has become an unpredictable regional environment.

However, the Knesset has endured a difficult year in 2015, calling into question the sustainability of this strategy. The Iranian nuclear deal has left Israel’s coalition government exposed to heavy criticism, with both parties from the left and the right describing the deal as a major foreign policy disaster. Politicians across the political spectrum fear that Netanyahu’s coarse diplomatic approach to the matter has not only produced a foreign policy disaster for Israel, but also damaged relations with the Obama administration through heavy-handed criticism.

The potential removal of sanctions on Iran, a key sponsor of Hizbullah, will be a significant cause for concern amongst the Israeli security services, as the lifting of embargoes on conventional arms will be perceived as an opportunity to strengthen Hizbullah both financially and militarily. Sources close to the organisation have argued that ‘additional Iranian support would not come in the form of weaponry, but rather in the form of institutional resources — schools, hospitals and roads — increasing local support, while propping up Shiite militias and regime forces in neighbouring Syria.’[2]

However, the implications of the Iranian nuclear deal, while important in changing the future dynamics of the Hizbullah-Israeli conflict, serves to distract attention from the way that Hizbullah has established a degree of parity with the Israeli military that was absent in the 2006 Lebanon war.

According to Jeffrey White, Hizbullah has unilaterally expanded its missile capabilities alongside significant innovations in its defensive layout in southern Lebanon, while their military support for Bashar al-Assad has meant that the group has gained considerable potential in offensive strategy.[3] Israeli intelligence has estimated that Hizbullah ‘would likely…sustain fire of around a thousand rockets and missiles per day, dwarfing the approximate daily rate of 118 achieved in 2006.’[4] Such an increase in military power means that in the event of an attack major damage would be dealt to Israeli civil and military infrastructure, as well as the killing of scores of Israeli civilians.

Covert Iranian support for Hizbullah, while prevalent, has been over-emphasized by Western media. According to Uzi Rubin, it was ‘Syrian rockets (that) played the major role in the Second Lebanon war (2006), while Iranian rockets were practically absent from it’ and ‘few if any Iranian rockets hit Israel throughout the entire (2006) campaign.’[5] Whether or not Iran covertly supports Hizbullah or not in the next war will not determine the group’s capacity to do formidable damage to Israel.

An ill-timed military campaign designed to weaken Hizbullah, while considered legitimate to the hawkish Israeli government, will provide more problems than solutions for Israeli security, as well as increasing problems for its European allies, and further destabilizing the wider region. The conflict would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and Europe and present Western leaders with yet another war in the Middle East to navigate.

The Lebanese government and Hizbullah are already struggling to provide for a huge number of refugees, which has produced a major socio-economic and humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. This is not an entirely new phenomenon. The Palestinians and its refugee population have, historically, had a difficult relationship with the Lebanese population. But the Syrian refugees provide a new and unpredictable dynamic to this relationship between local and refugee populations.

If Lebanese civil and military infrastructure and its civilians are treated in an indiscriminate manner by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the pursuit of Hizbullah, it will create a new humanitarian crisis by displacing thousands of Lebanese civilians while undermining governmental capacity to provide for its Palestinian and Syrian refugee populations. In the second Lebanon War (2006) the IDF severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure and displaced 900,000 Lebanese civilians, as well as killing over one thousand.[6]

A war now would have far greater impact, making these statistics pale by comparison. Not only is the regional context significantly less stable than it was in 2006, but there is also a more belligerent government in power in Isreal. Netanyahu’s coalition is drifting towards an open embrace of ethno-religious nationalism. It continues to introduce increasingly discriminatory policies against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, and perseveres in its use of draconian military tactics, many of which have invited international condemnation.

In the second Lebanon War, according to Human Rights Watch, ‘94 attacks show that Israel often, even though not deliberately attacking civilians, did not distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects.’ The heavy casualties and critical damage resulting from these attacks illustrated ‘the failure of the IDF to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian casualties’ in the fight against Hamas during the 2014 Gaza War, the IDF obliterated entire areas of the Gaza Strip, much of which remains in ruins, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless and dependent on a trickle of humanitarian aid. This seems to demonstrate that the IDF has barely changed its military conduct.

Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees will be caught in the cross-fire and thousands will be forced to flee. These refugees would struggle to enter Israel – Netanyahu has reaffirmed the Knesset’s policy of zero tolerance on providing asylum for refugees, who he contends will destabilise the geographic and demographic integrity of Israel. The alternative for these refugees fleeing a third Israeli-Lebanon war is Assad or ISIS, an unrealistic alternative that may force thousands to flood to Turkey, Jordan or to Europe. This will exacerbate the ongoing migrant/refugee crisis there and further destabilise a the fragile Balkan countries.

A third Lebanon War would additionally increase Israeli isolation while providing an opportunity for ultra-violent extremist splinter groups affiliated with Islamic State and radical jihadist cells to strengthen their position in a disordered eastern Lebanon. Eastern Lebanon remains fiercely contested by Lebanese Armed Forces and Hizbullah fighting against insurgents associated with ISIS who have been pushed into Lebanon by the Syrian military.

These are plausible scenarios as Israel’s stature in the international community continues to slide, as typified by the wide-spread international condemnation of the brutal Gaza War, Netanyahu’s souring relationship with Barack Obama, and the anti-Arab rhetoric he used against Israeli Arabs to swing the March elections in Likud’s favour.

Is the war inevitable? As Ari Shavit notes, a balance in military deterrents could prevent an escalation. However the precarious January crisis proved that small incidents can escalate into open hostility (the second Lebanon war was an even graver example). Amidst the unpredictability of the radically changing Middle East and the unprecedented changes occurring in Israeli society and politics, conventional military deterrents may not be enough in the long-term.

The remaining solution is for Israel to reform its diplomatic approach in the region and with the international community, and for Western policymakers to make serious efforts to reach out to the new (and legitimate) and conventional regimes in the Middle East. This could prove decisive in preventing an escalation in hostilities and mediating a swift ceasefire between the two parties should conflict break out, meaning that impact of the war upon Lebanon and Israel would be limited.

The Arab-Israeli conflict dynamic remains a dangerous blind-spot in the current Middle Eastern crisis that cannot be neglected. For Israel, a protracted war with Hizbullah would not only be a costly military confrontation, it would also further damage Israel’s standing amongst its western allies. These allies suspect that Netanyahu’s unilateral attempts to secure national security will trigger a destabilising conflict between Israel, Lebanon and Hizbullah, thereby undermining one of the West’s wider strategic objectives in the Middle East: the containment of the regional violence and instability.

Future military and diplomatic hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah are inevitable. What is crucial is how Israeli politicians, Western policymakers, and Hizbullah’s leadership contain this rivalry to limited and intermittent confrontations. This will decide whether or not the conflict will ignite a regional inferno.

Matthew Williams recently completed his MA in Conflict, Security and Development in the Department of War Studies and King’s College London. You can follow him on Twitter @Matthew431 or view his personal website www.archivesofconflict.wordpress.com/

[1] Muriel, Ausseberg, “The Arab Spring and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Vicious Cycle of Mutually Reinforcing Negative Repercussions,” in An Arab Springboard for EU Foreign Policy eds. Sven Biscop, Rosa Balfour and Michael Emerson (The Royal Institute for International Relations): 86.

[2] Alessandra, Masi, “Will A Nuclear Deal With Iran Strengthen American Enemies Across The Region?,” The International Business Times, July 14th, 2015, accessed September 18th, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.com/will-nuclear-deal-iran-strengthen-american-enemies-across-region-2008602.

[3] “A War Like No Other: Israel vs. Hezbollah in 2015,” last modified 29 January 2015, accessed September 14, 2015, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/a-war-like-no-other-israel-vs.-hezbollah-in-2015.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Uzi, Rubin, “The Rocket Campaign against Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War,” The Begin-Sada Center for Strategic Studies, 71 (2007): 6-7.

[6] “Israel accused over Lebanon war,” last modified September 6, 2007, accessed September 14, 2015, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6981557.stm.

Hezbollah in Syria: a game of high stakes

June 19, 2015

By Kitty Veress:

000_Nic6455785-e1432745822842-635x357 — Hezbollah members mourn during the funeral of a comrade who was killed in combat alongside Syrian government forces in the Qalamoun region. Photo: Times of Israel (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

The Western world has been quick to label Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria and Iraq as nefarious and threatening while failing to consider the wider strategic implications. A more comprehensive perspective is needed to evaluate the risks and opportunities the extremist Shi’ite group faces in its support of the Syrian regime. The potential benefit of establishing itself as a regional power and battle-hardening its troops needs to be weighed against Hezbollah’s risk of physical and ideological overexpansion that might expose the group’s vulnerabilities and ultimately endanger Lebanon’s defence capabilities.

Hezbollah

Created in 1982, Hezbollah was originally a resistance group against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. Since then it has become a prolific global terrorist organisation that has proven its ability to attack anywhere in the world through a wide network of cells. Hezbollah has adapted to domestic and regional dynamics, asserted its position by strengthening its grip on Lebanese politics, and expanded its military influence in the region. The extremist group remains a strong political player with an ability to paralyze Lebanese political institutions and obstruct the appointment of key positions.

Thanks to its state-sponsor Iran, Hezbollah has grown into the strongest military force in Lebanon, with its own division of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and a breadth and variety of both short and long-range military-grade weapons, such as Syrian Scud-D missiles, that can reach deep into Israeli territory. The group’s involvement in regional crises in Syria, Iraq and Yemen marks an ideological and tactical shift towards regional power that renews the threat to American interests and to their allies in the Middle East.

The regional footprint

Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria is not based on rash decision-making but is rather a sign of the trademark methodical approach that has ensured the group’s survival over more than three decades. Openly operating in Syria since 2013, Hezbollah assists the Assad regime and wages what is essentially a counterinsurgency campaign against inferior enemy rebel factions. In response to ISIS’ territorial expansion, Hezbollah also sent troops to Iraq in early 2015 to back local Shi’ite militias leading the fight against the Sunni extremist group. Although the West publicly minimizes the role that foreign Shi’ite fighters play in the coalition’s battle against ISIS, Hezbollah’s formidable military posture and its ability to foster support against a common enemy beyond its Shi’ite constituency render it an essential part of the fight against Sunni extremism.

Recent open source footage chronicles Hezbollah’s pro-Assad battlefield actions and illustrates the commitment and fierceness of the group’s operations: Youtube videos show military battles against both al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as against ISIS, after Hezbollah began an offensive within the Syrian Qalamoun Mountains along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

In addition to its advanced weapons cache, Hezbollah continues to tactically innovate, the prime example being its employment of commercial short-range UAVs. The drones assist in the planning of assaults, conduct reconnaissance and support real-time combat operations via live feeds.

A recently revealed UAV airstrip in the Lebanese Beka’a valley, close to the Syrian border, underlines the role of technological innovation in Hezbollah’s operations as well as the group’s longer-term commitment to defending the Assad regime. While Hezbollah has employed Iranian-made drones against Israel since 2004, its construction of an airstrip as well as its switch to commercial drones against other non-state actors proves how seriously the group takes its involvement in Syria.

The stakes

Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria was undoubtedly requested by Iran, its main sponsor, who directed Hezbollah to support its prime regional Shi’ite ally by fighting the Syrian opposition and Sunni extremists alike. Yet Hezbollah’s involvement also reflects deep personal stakes because it could be immeasurably damaged were the Syrian regime to fall. By bolstering Assad’s forces, the Shi’ite group preserves its relationship to the state and ensures that important logistical and weapons supply routes are kept accessible. At the same time, it fends off an expansion of Sunni extremism that threatens to spillover into neighbouring countries.

Risks and opportunities

Hezbollah’s active regional presence comes with a plethora of consequences that will be decisive for the group’s future. Success on the battlefield will bolster Hezbollah’s reshaped identity as living proof that the group has evolved from merely a defender of Lebanese Shi’ites against Israel to a defender of the Shi’ite faith within the entire region. In an echo of the Arab World’s overwhelmingly supportive reaction to Hezbollah after the second Lebanon War in 2006, an effective Syria campaign would exponentially boost the group’s regional influence and elevate it into a key stakeholder in the Middle East. A successful extension of Assad’s grip on Syria would keep the Iranian-led Shi’ite Axis intact and continue to allow Hezbollah a logistical safe-haven to sustain smooth operations.

Military successes would further maintain Hezbollah’s position within Lebanon and promote continued, self-sustained domestic recruitment into the organisation. A worry, especially promulgated by Israel, is that Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria could battle-harden its troops who will gain valuable skills and combat experience that will give them an edge in potential future conflicts with its primary enemy Israel. This concern is not unwarranted, as the group is already bolstering its military capabilities by cleaning out Syria’s weapons depots and stockpiling them in southern Lebanon. However, due to its deep commitments in Syria and other regional crises, it would seem suicidal for Hezbollah to embark upon an offensive against Israel at this time.

At the same time, continued involvement in Syria without visible successes may lead to a rift between Hezbollah’s leadership and its followers. Since its involvement in domestic politics in 1992, the group has become more accountable to its constituency who – with unprecedented magnitude – have voiced concerns about the legitimacy of the Syrian intervention. The leadership is being forced to justify the sacrifice of Shi’ite lives in a conflict that at present does not pose any immediate threats to Lebanon, thereby straining the coherency of Hezbollah’s narrative. While imposing speeches by Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah continue to maintain widespread and fervent support among its members, rebellion within its own ranks may become a more pressing issue as the conflict moves on without resolution and battle-weariness sets in.

In addition to the risk of internal division, Hezbollah also faces potential over-exertion by waging a multi-front campaign that could overstretch its forces and limit its operational capacities. While this may at first seem beneficial to Western national security interests, a weakening of the Shi’ite group would expose Lebanon’s defence capabilities, which depend on Hezbollah as the first line of defence. A weakened Hezbollah might also tempt ISIS to direct some elements towards Lebanon, especially in the face of Hezbollah’s propagation of anti-Sunni sentiment. Extreme battlefield attrition could thus render the group unable to defend Lebanon and make its home base an attractive target for the high-flaming sectarian tensions fostered by ISIS.

Conclusion

Hezbollah has repeatedly proven its adaptability to changing domestic and regional dynamics, which demonstrates the group’s strength and unpredictability. Yet the intervention in Syria pushes the group into a somewhat reactive position, as Hezbollah’s fate now hinges on Assad’s perseverance and on ISIS’ success or failure. Should Hezbollah manage to push back the Sunni extremist factions, the prospective rewards are likely to elevate the group’s domestic and regional standing beyond anything it has ever experienced. However, the risks of failure are great, as an unsuccessful mission in Syria threatens to unravel the group’s reputation for strong ideological and organisational coherence. In a worst-case scenario, Hezbollah’s risky enterprise could daisy-chain Lebanon into the events in Syria and push the country into the black hole of sectarian violence.

Kitty Veress is a recent graduate from the M.A. Security Studies Program at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Her research focuses on non-state violent actors and the nexus between psychology and terrorism. She currently lives in Washington, DC, and is about to take up her PhD studies at King’s College London’s War Studies Department on the topic of European foreign fighters and their decision-making processes. Follow her @Kitonia

An elusive stalemate: Israel and Hezbollah along the tri-border

May 22, 2015

By Sebastian Maier:

07hezbollah.xlarge1 — Hezbollah soldiers. Photo copyright: Associated Press (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

When the Israeli Air Force on 12 January 2015 allegedly carried out a sortie against a Hezbollah military convoy in the south western Syrian district of Quneitra, news spread quickly that among the victims was a prominent figure of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force special unit, General Allah Dadi. The purported Israeli air strike on the al-Amal Farms also killed Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Hezbollah intelligence commander Imad Mughniyeh, who in February 2008 died in a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Merely two weeks after, Hezbollah lived up to expectations and retaliated by ambushing Israeli military vehicles, killing two and wounding seven soldiers close to the Israeli-occupied Sheba’a Farms on the Golan Heights.

In the grand scheme of things, the reported airstrike and Hezbollah’s act of reprisal are hardly surprising. Quite the contrary, in order to understand these events, one has to look to the inception and evolvement of what has become a well-entrenched animosity taking place across one of the Middle East’s most precarious theatres: the Syria-Lebanon-Israel tri-border area.

The prelude: Hezbollah’s early years

When Israel in 1978 first staged a military incursion into southern Lebanon, few considered it a harbinger of what was to come. With the outbreak of the 1982 Lebanon War, the Israeli occupation, and Hafez al-Assad’s efforts to establish a Ba’athist Pax Syriana on its neighbouring country’s soil, Lebanon’s sectarian fractures became deeply entrenched.

While the Israelis pushed northbound into the outskirts of Beirut with the support of the South Lebanon Army (its Christian proxy), the emerging Islamic Republic of Iran came to the fore and seized an opportunity to spread Iran’s influence in the region. Iran deployed 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon, with the strategically crucial Beqa’a Valley as their final destination. In doing so, Tehran turned this fertile land into a Shia militant hotbed, ultimately paving the way for the birth of its Lebanese surrogate, ‘the Party of God’, or Hezbollah.

With this consolidated supply route over Shia territory, ranging from Tehran through Damascus into Southern Lebanon, the foundation had been laid for Hezbollah. In the coming years it relied on this route to violently resist the Israeli occupation while pursuing its integration into Lebanese politics.[1] As a consequence, after a 15 year-long low-level war of attrition, in 2000 Israel’s prime minister Ehud Barak called for the unilateral withdrawal of troops from what had become a protracted battlefield in Southern Lebanon. It was no longer the cordon sanitaire the Israelis had originally set out to create. Playing into Hezbollah’s hands, this manoeuvre subsequently fuelled the perception that the politicians in Israel were trying to sell an obvious surrender as a strategy.

Lessons of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War

The years after the withdrawal do not represent a period of peaceful coexistence along the Lebanese border. Occasional skirmishes prevailed on the meadows of the Sheba’a Farms. Then on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah mounted a cross-border raid leading to the killing of 8 Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two reservists. This was supposed to represent a stepping stone towards securing the release of Druze Samir al-Quntar, the Lebanese former Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) member, who was imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in the 1979 Nahariya kidnapping attack. The raid by Hezbollah sparked the outbreak of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

Other factors that led to the War were Israel’s determination to change the rules of the strategic deadlock along the border, and Hezbollah’s increasing influence on Hamas, who in June 2006 had abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. What’s more, there were rumours that Hezbollah were on the brink of achieving first-strike capabilities.[2]

With the Israeli military campaign one week old, Ehud Barak admitted that the Israeli occupation in Lebanon may have led to the creation of Hezbollah:

‘When we entered Lebanon, there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.’[3]

Soon it became clear that Israel’s military had lost its deterrent edge against an enemy who could blend irregular warfare with the weaponry and capabilities that were generally the preserve of regular armies.

As a result, in the later stages of the hostilities, Israel tried to alter the perception of Hezbollah at the receiving end by applying an iron fist policy of massive retaliation. On 22 July 2006 the Israeli Air flattened the Shia Dahiya suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, in Beirut’s southern outskirts. Ever since, the term ‘Dahiya’ has been used to describe a strategic watershed experience for the Israeli military. The draconic air campaign was intended to be a disproportional punishment in order to restore credibility and to induce ‘a calm built on fear, not on political settlement.’[4]

Hezbollah, however, endured the pounding by absorbing the damage, and continued their operational resistance. Indeed, it even managed to drag Israel back into waging a ground incursion into Southern Lebanon, a battlefield with negative connotations hard-wired into Israel’s military history.[5] To that end, Israel’s firepower, and Hezbollah’s ability to exploit Israel’s ‘Lebanese mud-syndrome’[6] cleared the way for a realignment of their animosity.

Both sides managed to seriously damage each other, which explains the relative quietude and restraint along the Israeli-Lebanese border ever since. Israel’s calculus stems from a pragmatic realization that only an escalatory response can achieve the temporary absence of violence along its borders. Hezbollah, for its part, internalized the art of blending into civilian areas and concealing its operating squads in order to hide and disperse. It decreased its own vulnerability but raised the probability of Lebanese civilians coming into the firing line.

Another front opens up: Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria

In April 2013, the Arab Spring now a distant memory, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah made a public vow of fidelity to Assad. This came only a few days after visiting Tehran.[7] He made no secret of the fact that his fighters had gone to support the Shia-sect Alawite regime. Nasrallah, in an attempt to rally domestic support across sectarian lines, justified the deployment of his troops over the border by declaring that Hezbollah would only fight Sunni extremists, who would otherwise threaten Lebanese Shia and Christians.

The true reason for helping Assad is different: besides Tehran, Damascus still counts Hezbollah’s amongst its most important allies. If Assad were to fall, Hezbollah’s resilience in its struggle against Israel would be at stake, as would its strategic foothold in the Levant. For Assad, the involvement of Hezbollah’s troops in Syria is vital in containing a variety of anti-regime forces and the surge of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

The consequence of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is that the group is very busy. Another escalation with Israel and it may be forced to engage on two fronts simultaneously. This would divert and overstretch its military capabilities, and could even push Lebanon to the brink of collapse. This is exacerbated by the massive influx of Syrian refugees, who have become a huge social burden for the country.

Nasrallah, the former hero of the Arab masses, has thus embarked on a dangerous path. Celebrated for his achievement in forcing Israel’s pullout in 2000 and resisting a military incursion 6 years later, he has now risked further deepening the region’s broader Sunni-Shia divide. In addition, despite possessing an impressive rocket arsenal, it appears unlikely that Hezbollah could survive another round of Israeli escalation as long as it is caught up in the Syrian quagmire.[8]

Israel is attempting to navigate through an increasingly troublesome landscape on its northern front, and so for now it seems to be determined to adhere to a containment policy against Hezbollah. In 2013, when the risk of violence increased in the Shia Crescent, Israel sent a clear message by carrying out air strikes targeting military transport in the outskirts of Damascus, which Israel claimed to be supplying Hezbollah.

Finally, the events in January 2015 can be considered the latest reminder of a strategic stalemate along the border. The law of talion, ‘an eye for a tooth’[9], which represented the Israeli strategy during the hostilities in 2006, set the pattern for the conflict. Israel and Hezbollah now tacitly adhere to an even-tempered rationale. In the foreseeable future it will be tit-for-tat, rather than all-out war, that will characterise the ever volatile tri-border area.

Sebastian Maier graduated in January 2015 from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, with an MA in Intelligence & International Security. He lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

NOTES

[1] Saad Ghorayeb, A., Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (Pluto Press London UK, 2001), pp.112,113.

[2]Norton, A.R., Hezbollah- A Shorty History (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2007), pp.133,134.

[3] Ibid. p.33.

[4] Rapoport, M., Flaws in Israel’s ‘punish and deter’ strategy, Middle East Eye, 10 July, 2014.

[5] Even before Hezbollah’s inception hostile actions against Israel had been carried out from Southern Lebanese soil, e.g. by armed terrorists, including 1000 Libyan and 500 Syrian volunteers. In: Gilbert, M., The Arab-Israeli Conflict- Its history in Maps ( London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), p.77.

[6] Lieberman, E., Reconceptualizing Deterrence: Nudging Toward Rationality in Middle Eastern rivalries (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p.197.

[7] The Daily Star, Lebanon, Nasrallah met Khamenei in Iran, to make speech May 9, April 22, 2013.

[8] Levitt, M., Hezbollah’s Syrian Quagmire, PRISM, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 2014.

[9] Byman, D. L., An Eye for a Tooth: The Trouble with Israeli Deterrence, ForeignPolicy.com, 23 July, 2014.

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