Why is tension simmering along Lebanon-Israel border ?
Despite the posturing, both Israel and Hezbollah understand that the scale of the next war will completely dwarf the one in 2006
The calm that has prevailed for more than a decade along the Lebanon-Israel border is being rattled by a flurry of fiery warnings from both sides that has many here concerned another war between the Jewish state and Lebanon’s Hezbollah organisation may be drawing closer.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to hit Israel’s nuclear reactor should the Jewish state attack. Israeli officials have warned that all Lebanon will be struck, if Hezbollah attacks the Israeli home front.
The prospect of a mutually destructive war unleashed on Lebanon and Israel continues to act as deterrence, but it remains perilously vulnerable to a miscalculation that could spiral into a conflict before either can dial it back.
“I don’ think [a war] is imminent. But mistakes based on miscalculations and wrong messaging can happen,” says Randa Slim, a scholar with the Washingtonbased Middle East Institute and an expert on Hezbollah. “Despite Nasrallah’s blustery rhetoric, Hezbollah is in no position to wage this war now [and] Israel cannot afford to call Nasrallah’s bluff about targeting the nuclear plant. The mutual deterrence regime that has been in place on the Israeli-Lebanese border has been beneficial to both Israel and Hezbollah and I don’t think either side is ready yet to upend it.”
The latest mutual threats were provoked by the new Trump administration signaling an intention to roll back the growing influence of Iran, Hezbollah’s sponsor, across the Middle East. But given the extensive influence Iran wields in Syria and Iraq and to a lesser extent in Yemen, a new US effort to dent the Islamic Republic’s
Although much of the attention on Hezbollah in recent years has been on the organisation’s activities in Syria, it has not abandoned the Israel front.
reach could have ramifications for the more pressing goal of defeating Daesh, and could incur a potent backlash against American interests from Iran-backed groups across the region.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon handed the White House a preliminary plan to defeat Daesh — which Trump has touted as a top foreign policy priority. While the proposal remains classified, some reports have suggested the recommendations include expanding the scope to other militant extremist groups operating in the Middle East, among them Al Qaeda and possibly Hezbollah.
The renewed focus on Iranian activity in the Middle East has triggered some tough rhetoric from both sides of the LebanonIsrael border.
Nasrallah sought to bolster his organisation’s deterrence capabilities by threatening to target Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona, in southern Israel, and the ammonia storage facilities in Haifa in the north, should Israel attack Lebanon. While Hezbollah was not seeking a conflict with the Jewish state, Nasrallah told Iran’s Channel 1 News, “Israel should think a million times before waging any war with Lebanon.”
Despite the posturing, both sides understand that the scale of the next war will completely dwarf the last one in 2006. That grim reality has helped ensure 10 years of relative tranquillity along the Lebanon-Israel border.
Still, the risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other could quickly turn the calm into violence. Israel has pushed the envelope more than Hezbollah in recent years, with assassinations of Hezbollah personnel and airstrikes in Syria against suspected arms depots or convoys destined for the Lebanese group. Hezbollah has been careful to tailor its reprisal operations to deliver a slap to Israel, but not be hard enough to upset the “balance of terror.”
In the past decade, the Lebanese group has expanded massively in terms of manpower, weaponry, and experience. Since 2012, Hezbollah fighters have learned a new set of battlefield skills in Syria, where the group has intervened to defend the regime of President Bashar Al Assad.