Netanyahu bets on Lebanon to justify his forever wars
By James M. Dorsey
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.
“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.
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.
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 muti-role Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, or JLTVs, to replace Israel’s ageing fleet of Humvees.
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.