There appears to be no planned end game for the war in Lebanon. When will it be safe to have the residents of the north of Israel return to their homes? Are we heading towards another Israeli occupied south Lebanon – we have been there before and did that for 18 years! Didn’t we learn anything from all of those years and from all of the Israeli soldiers who were killed there? When Israel first entered Lebanon way back in 1982, the Shiite villagers threw rice and candies at the Israeli soldiers feeling a sense of being liberated from the years of the area under control of Palestinian armed factions. A year later they were busy planting road side bombs to kill those same soldiers. No people agrees to be occupied by a foreign army. There are no magic solutions for Israel in Lebanon.
Lebanon is a very complex country, no doubt. But there may actually be an opportunity for Lebanon to reconstitute itself as an independent sovereign country no longer controlled by the Hezbollah militia and organization. That is what friends of mine in Lebanon tell me. Israel has succeeded in making Hezbollah seriously weakened and lacking new charismatic leadership and senior officer corp. They are still powerful enough to continue to hit Israel with rockets, missiles and drones for a long time to come. They are also strong enough to continue to kill Israeli soldiers stationed in Lebanon. But they may be weak enough for the majority of Lebanese citizens to work together across community lines to form a new government, which is not controlled by Hezbollah. As I said, Lebanon is a very complex country, but my friends in Lebanon tell me that such an opportunity does exist right now. But the longer that Israel remains in Lebanon and continues to bomb Lebanon, the chances of reconstituting that country will fade away rapidly.
The immediate problem is that what Israel found in the south of Lebanon with the Hezbollah ground force readiness for a major cross border attack against Israel requires Israel to focus on destroying the infrastructure there so that no such attack is possible. That is what should be the primary mission right now for Israel. Israel will also have to rethink its border protection on all of Israel’s borders, no longer relying mainly on technology but rather real boots on the ground. That is especially true for the Lebanese border as well.
But Israel needs to have an exit strategy that also puts into place Israel’s need to enter into a political process with the country of Lebanon aimed at resolving the 12-or 13 border disputes and a long-term treaty of calm with international guarantees and an effective observer force with a much better mandate and rules of engagement than that of UNIFIL. And Israel will have to be a lot more observant of any breaches in understandings so that Israel’s own rules of engagement are clear and acted on.
Any political agreement with Lebanon is also largely dependent on moving ahead with the Palestinians on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is obviously way beyond the ability or desire of the current Israeli government. The current Israeli government is busy weighing the psychotic fantasy of building Israeli settlements in Gaza including crimes of removing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip and perhaps even beyond. These same messianic dangerous leaders of Israel today are also considering building Israeli settlements in the south of Lebanon. Netanyahu and his regime are dangerous for us all and somehow the majority of Israelis who don’t want to continue to live in the nightmare that has become our reality must figure out the way to get rid of this government and the man who led Israel right into October 7.
