Will Israel-Hezbollah Escalate? First Ask What Iran Wants In Lebanon

-Analysis-

BEIRUT — The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel was a turning point for the Middle East. It set off a chain of events across the region, most notably along the Lebanese-Israeli border where Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged nearly daily attacks, at the same time that Israel is busy prosecuting its bloody war on Gaza.

As the Israeli military expands its control over Gaza, it is stepping up its artillery and air attacks on southern Lebanon, inflicting human casualties as well property destruction to border areas.

At the same time, Hezbollah, the most powerful Iranian-backed militant group in the region, has continued its attacks on Israeli forces and military bases. It has largely avoided attacking evacuated settlements on the borders with Lebanon with its full destructive force.

Hezbollah does not seek to expand the war that was imposed on it; yet it also does not want to be relegated to its sidelines, which would contradict its longstanding political discourse and declared goals of being a protagonist in the region’s conflict.

Thus the Lebanese militant group has found itself between two complicated options at a decisive historical moment: either being a bystander, which involves a huge political cost with unpredictable direct and indirect repercussions, or engaging in the war, with the huge material and human losses.

This all comes as Lebanon is already entering its fifth year of nationwide economic and social collapse.

Hezbollah gamble

At first glance, any Lebanese would imagine that Hezbollah is gambling with the lives and property of the Lebanese people, especially those who live in the south. This is partially true. Hezbollah’S behavior, from the beginning, is not controlled by Lebanese internal contradictions alone, despite their great influence. The group — as a political entity — remains largely subject to the rotten underbelly of Lebanese politics.

But as an armed entity, everyone knows that it has become “larger than (the state of) Lebanon.” And this is a matter that will be decided by the facts that have accumulated over the last ten years.

Hezbollah’s military behavior since Oct. 7 appears to be consistent with the moderating statements of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, particularly regarding the expansion of the war.

Before the war in Gaza, Hezbollah had spent years trying to avoid the complexity of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, even if it was the main driving force in the negotiations to demarcate the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel — and the indirect recognition of the existence of Israel as a state.

Hezbollah has mostly stood in line with Iran’s rejection for years of the “language of force” that Israel has been adopting regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

Rhetoric and action

The behaviour of Israel’s far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since it took over power in December 2022, has contributed to escalating the level of violence, harassment, and discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.

The escalation is ignored in the prevailing narrative in the West, which deals with the Oct. 7 attack as a separate event with no roots or causes. In addition to the war of starvation, ethnic cleansing, and displacement of Gaza people, Netanyahu’s government is escalating attacks on villages in southern Lebanon. Both its rhetoric and actions are exacerbating the possibilities of an all-out war with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, shows contradictions between his behavior and rhetoric, as the questions on the actual feasibility of the “maneuver” that Hezbollah began in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s goals

If we looked at the issue from a purely moral perspective, we would say that what Hezbollah is doing is exactly the right thing. As it is the least that can be done to reject Israel’s genocide in Gaza amid shameful Arab silence and complicity.

But Hezbollah itself had participated, in one way or another, in exterminating, starving, displacing and collectively punishing the Syrian people. That included the destruction of the Palestinian Yarmouk camp, under the pretext of fighting ISIS and other extremist Sunni factions.

The similarities between what happened in Syria and what is happening in Gaza in terms of collective punishment practices are plain to see.

Therefore, the moral question is also related to the actor, and not to the action alone. The direct purpose of Hezbollah actions appears to be political not moral, despite the killing of its fighters by the Israeli military.

And to be more precise, this political goal is not exclusively related to the Palestinian cause, nor is it related to the strategic dimension of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict only, nor is it limited to the party’s religious doctrine. Rather, above all, it constitutes a fundamental pillar of the regional agenda of Iran.

Here, Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian politicians and media professionals must pay attention to Iran’s foreign agenda and evaluate it objectively, in a way that serves the interests of their people first.

Tehran’s interests

The main question here is not what Hezbollah wants from engaging in partial battles that could quickly develop into an all-out war. But rather what does Iran want?

This question should not be asked in an accusatory context, but rather it should be asked rationally as it imposes itself more than ever before. Everyone knows what Israel wants today: to displace the people of Gaza and seize the territory, in preparation for complete control, and perhaps a military seizure of the entire Palestinian territories, “from the river to the sea.”

This path is affirmed by Netanyahu’s rejection of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the extremist Israeli voices are no longer shy in expressing their genocidal efforts and plans.

Instead, with Iran, we do not know what the regime really wants from the regional conflict. Within that, we do not know what Iran wants from the ongoing battles in southern Lebanon, even though it has been proven that they have no actual impact in stopping Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the case of Israel, the hostility toward Lebanon is clear. But in the case of Iran, we do not know whether our interests as peoples are fundamentally involved in Iranian calculations or whether we are merely pawns on a chessboard. The bitter Syrian experience favors the second option.

What is certain is that despite the bloody events and the horror of Israel’s war in Gaza, we have the right to ask the following question, and reaffirm: What does Iran really want from us?