Israel’s Need For Permanent War Is Its Great Weakness

-Analysis-

BEIRUT —  Beirut, where I am right now, has a talent for rebirth after every crisis, with an appetite for life that overcomes all obstacles. And yet, the scars of war are still everywhere, those of the civil war, whose 50th anniversary we have just commemorated; or those of the latest Israeli bombardments, even if they didn’t make it to the city center.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel 19 months ago, the region has been plunged into a war without end — and with no way out. It continues in Gaza, the scene of a merciless conflict in which collective punishment is being inflicted on 2 million Palestinian civilians.

And every day brings its own tragedy: An inhabitant of a Jewish settlement just died in a bomb attack, prompting a call from an Israeli minister to raze to the ground what he calls “the nests of terror” in the West Bank, just as, he says, Israel is doing in Gaza.

A war without a plan

October 7 opened the gates of hell in the region, with several parallel wars of different intensities. The conflict is giving rise to a new set of dynamics, but at the same time, the underlying problems have remained unchanged since forever.

Israel has unquestionably imposed its military might. Here in Lebanon, Hezbollah has experienced this first-hand, although the Shiite militia boasted of its power. It’s a fact that the Israeli war machine prevails everywhere.

Not a single Arab country has broken off relations with Israel.

But as a Lebanese figure with extensive international experience told me, Israel has the capacity to impose itself militarily, but no political project to back up this regional hegemony. A headless hegemon in need of permanent war: That’s how part of the Arab world, and not only them, see Israel.

This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s great weakness since he launched his army into Gaza in what initially appeared to be an operation of self-defense: He has nothing to offer the Palestinians as long as he rejects any Arab or European plans for a post-war political settlement.

Two worlds

That’s the paradox of the moment: On the one hand, outrageous war, as seen in Gaza, and on the other, an area of prosperity and wealth at the other end of the Arab world, in the Gulf. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tour has just shown that he has chosen his camp by embracing the Gulf princes’ dream of prosperity, and is even eagerly pursuing the hope of a “deal” with Iran.

There was a time when the Gulf states were looking to Israel as a security and technology hub. The United Arab Emirates have already officially recognized Israel, and Saudi Arabia was about to do so on the eve of Oct. 7.

All this stopped dead in its tracks, and seems incompatible with what is being inflicted on the Gazans. But it should be noted that not a single Arab country has broken off relations with Israel.

The solution to this permanent crisis may well lie in Israel itself, for it is at the heart of the region’s leading military power that a change of course may be decided. Debates within Israeli society are heated — even if, as seen from Beirut, no one is expecting any swift change.

But the region has lived with war for so long that it no longer believes in miracles: It lives despite it all.