This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘How will Hizbollah respond to Israel’s Lebanon onslaught?’
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about the war in Lebanon. My guest is Kim Ghattas, an FT contributing editor based in Beirut. For almost a year, there’s been speculation and fear about a war between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon. Now it’s broken out. Israeli bombing raids in Lebanon earlier this week killed almost 600 people. So can the war be contained? Or are Lebanon and Israel now locked into a spiralling conflict?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Ever since the Gaza conflict broke out after the Hamas attacks of October the 7th of last year, there’s been speculation that Israel would also open a second front on its northern border. Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militia that controls southern Lebanon, has been firing missiles into northern Israel, forcing many thousands of Israelis to leave their homes and to become internal refugees. The Israeli government was under domestic pressure to do something about this. But the Israeli military is already stretched by the war in Gaza, and it was under intense pressure from the US not to open a second front in the conflict.
News clip
This was Nabatieh, in the south of the country. Yet more panic, this time at the funeral of those killed in the string of pager explosions less than 24 hours earlier.
Gideon Rachman
Israel’s first actions were unconventional and spectacular. The explosions in the pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hizbollah fighters killed and maimed scores of the organisation’s recruits and many bystanders. Nobody doubts that was Israel’s work.
But the Israeli armed forces followed up with a large-scale and deadly bombing raid, and there’s now speculation about a possible Israeli ground offensive. I began my conversation with Kim Ghattas by asking her about the situation in Lebanon and Beirut itself. Does this now feel like a country at war?
Kim Ghattas
Gideon, on the one hand, it feels like we’ve been at war for 10, 11 months already because Hizbollah launched its first rockets against Israel on the 8th of October. And they’ve been engaged in border clashes with Israel since then. And that has led to various ripple effects. Refugees leaving southern Lebanon, a state of alert in the first couple of months in Lebanon, October, November, as people saw that it would be all-out war. And so we’ve been through these various waves and people have been very tense and on high alert for some time now.
And then since last week, after Israel and Hizbollah had settled into a tit-for-tat balance of deterrence, Israel clearly shifted gears and Lebanon was traumatised on a national level when all these pagers went off and then the walkie-talkies. And then there was a strike against the southern suburbs of Beirut last week. And then on Monday, a large wave of Israeli air raids against various parts of Lebanon, not just the south, but also the Bekaa Valley. It’s just a crescendo of tension and fear across the country. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, this is a terrifying moment for the Lebanese, many of whom oppose Hizbollah. But it remains terrifying because you could be standing next to somebody who has a pager at the grocery store. You could be on the wrong road just as Israel decides to strike somebody from Hizbollah. And Monday was the deadliest day, I think ever for Lebanon, 598 or so, almost 600 people killed in one day. And they’re not going to sit here and believe the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he says, you know, Israel is after Hizbollah, we have nothing against you because people have been watching Gaza being flattened for 10 months.
Gideon Rachman
Indeed. So looking at Hizbollah, though, as you say, they fired into Israel on the 8th of October, but they haven’t seemed that keen to escalate much further. How damaged do you think they are by these very spectacular pager attacks and then by all the follow-up?
Kim Ghattas
It’s very clear that Hizbollah and Iran have tried not to escalate. If you look at the frequency of cross-border missiles, rockets, etc, 80 per cent of it comes from Israel into Lebanon over the last 11 months. Hizbollah and Iran didn’t want a full-on war, and they’ve shown pragmatic restraint. That’s not what it looks like or feels like for residents of northern Israel. But I’m afraid we’re about to possibly witness what it means when Hizbollah is not restrained. For the first time on Wednesday, Hizbollah used a missile that reached Tel Aviv. Now, it was intercepted. No damage. But that just goes to show that they still have capacity. I do think that they’ve been setback tremendously, that this is the biggest setback that they’ve ever suffered since their creation in the ‘80s. Their leadership is decapitated. There’s Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general still, and just a few others. But the first tier and the second tier, all the experienced guys who have been there for 40 years, many of them who have also fought in Syria are battle-hardened, they’re gone. And there must be some chaos within the organisation, some issues with chain of command.
But I think we should not write their obituary yet. They still have thousands of missiles. They still have a lot of combatants out there who will want to seek revenge for the loss of their commanders, friends, etc, who may not listen to the top any more and who at some point will want to inflict some real damage on Israel. So they have these missiles. They constantly use them. But most importantly — and Hassan Nasrallah referred to that in his speech last week — they want a long war of attrition and it will be a gift to them if Israel decides to have a ground invasion.
Gideon Rachman
You mentioned earlier that a lot of Lebanese, at least until this moment, have been very opposed to Hizbollah. What’s the internal sort of political dynamics within Lebanon? Because the state itself is very damaged, doesn’t it? I mean, how do you see the various forces contending, responding to what’s happening now?
Kim Ghattas
It’s a very tricky moment for Lebanon. I think we have to be very clear about the balance of power in this country. First all, just from an institutional point of view, we have no president. We have no cabinet. We only have a caretaker government. Our institutions are barely functioning. Lebanon’s been in an economic crisis for four years. It suffered through one of the worst non-nuclear explosions in modern history on August the 4th of 2020. And the Lebanese have turned against Hizbollah. There was a time when Hizbollah was seen as a national resistance movement fighting against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon until Israel withdrew in 2000. And since then, Hizbollah has become more powerful in Lebanon, has expanded its role across the region, has become more heavily armed and has veto power over a lot of Lebanon’s politics. And worse than that, it has become part of what people here describe as the mafia militia establishment. They’ve got fat on corruption. And perhaps that’s what made them less alert to their possible infiltration by Israel and I assume Israeli agents in Lebanon.
But to answer your question, it’s very complicated and difficult for the Lebanese to deal with this moment because they feel powerless. Many people have stood up to Hizbollah and paid with their lives. So, you know, I have a wry smile on my face when I hear somebody like the former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett say the Lebanese should topple Hizbollah. There is nothing to topple. This is not a government, this is not a hierarchy that sits at the top of Lebanon. That’s not how it works. And it really baffles the mind that the Israelis can’t comprehend that. They’ve been dealing with Hizbollah for four decades now. I think it’s still possible to have some kind of national appeal from within Lebanon to Hizbollah to say thank you very much for your sacrifices in supporting Palestine, Gaza, however you want to frame it. But what’s at stake now is the survival of Lebanon. You need to step down. In exchange, Lebanon needs to get ironclad guarantees from Israel that they will then respect that and not continue with their military operations against Lebanon. There is a UN resolution called 1701, which was put in place after the last confrontation between Israel and Hizbollah in 2006. That can be the template for how to move forward or that needs to be applied. Hizbollah started with their first missile strikes against Israel on the 8th of October. They climbed up a tree and they need a face-saving way to come down from it. We need to understand their rationale as well.
Gideon Rachman
That may be the way out in the long run, but what do you think — turning to the Israeli side of the equation — they are thinking? I mean, you mentioned the possibility of a ground invasion. That surely would be hugely risky. And they’ve tried it before. I mean, they occupied southern Lebanon and then eventually pulled out. It didn’t work for them. And equally, you also mentioned the huge stockpile of missiles that Hizbollah allegedly has, apparently much bigger than those that Hamas have, which could potentially put Tel Aviv in danger. So what do you think the Israelis are calculating?
Kim Ghattas
I just want to say that what I just laid out as an option for a way out is a short-term option. I think there’s a short window of opportunity to get Hizbollah to say, OK, you know, for the sake of Lebanon, we will stand down. I’m not saying it can work, but I think it’s worth a try. Everybody’s gathered at the UN and diplomacy needs to get into high gear to find a way with the Lebanese — opposition, establishment, everyone, the church, etc — to try to push this forward before it’s too late and before we enter into a war that could go on for weeks. And if you’ll just allow me, Gideon, before I answer your question about the Israelis. In 2006, after a devastating war between Hizbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah in an interview said: If I had known that the consequences of ordering an ambush on the Lebanese-Israeli border and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers would lead to such a devastating war, I would not have done it. Today, he should know the consequences of his insistence that we should continue to have Lebanon’s fate tied to Israel. So that’s where the opportunity comes and that’s where the diplomacy can come in.
As for the Israelis, I must say that a lot of us have misread them over the last 11 months. Hamas has misread them. Hamas thought that if they had all these Israeli hostages, Israel would do everything to keep them safe and get them out of Gaza. And so they thought they had bought a lot of time and human shields, you know, let’s call them that. Why is Israel now deciding to shift gears when their war of attrition against Hizbollah was delivering without engulfing the region into a wider war? I think they see an opportunity. They smell the weakness of Hizbollah. They’re on the back foot. And I think they realise that not much diplomacy is actually going to happen, my appeals notwithstanding. This is a moment during an election cycle in the US where it’s going to be pretty unlikely to see President Biden come out forcefully and do what it takes to limit Israel’s ability to continue with this wave of bombing against Lebanon.
Gideon Rachman
OK, so that’s Israel. But there’s also other important regional players with a stake in this. I mean, Hizbollah often described as a tool of Iran. How are the Iranians likely to react?
Kim Ghattas
Well, as we speak, Gideon, I see a news alert from Javad Zarif, former foreign minister, today aide to the new Iranian president, who says that Iran is ready to co-operate with other countries to bring an end to the war in Gaza. And I think that what Iran’s proxies and allies are coming to realise is that they’re kind of on their own. There is a great irony — I say it with a lot of sadness and angst for all the civilians who have been killed in Gaza, the Israeli hostages and now in Lebanon — that Hamas thought that when it launched that operation, the cavalry would come and the cavalry was going to be Hizbollah and Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and the Iranians. And it didn’t come. Again, I know that’s not what it feels like for Israelis, but imagine if the launching of missiles by Iran in April against Israel had not been choreographed and telegraphed, the damage would have been devastating and considerable. Eleven months later, we have Hizbollah on the back foot, pagers exploding everywhere. It’s top tier of commander decapitated, and it looks as though the Iranians aren’t ready to come to their assistance because what matters most to Iran is the survival of their regime. And that’s why also you hear a lot of Lebanese saying we’re not going to die for Iran. We’re ready to support Palestine. We did our best. It’s clearly not working. That strategy did not deter Israel. Hassan Nasrallah said, you know, we will continue to do this to stop Israel from invading Gaza. It invaded Gaza. And today the Lebanese are saying: Why? Why are we going to die? Because Iran needs a forward defence base in Lebanon. I’m not quite sure how that diplomacy gets into action, but it’s clear that Iran wants first and foremost the survival of its regime and a seat at the table to negotiate the future of this region.
Gideon Rachman
And Syria because Hizbollah would deploy, perhaps at the behest of Iran, to support the Assad regime in Syria. What are they doing?
Kim Ghattas
Missing in action. Bashar al-Assad, the stalwart defender of the Palestinian cause for all these decades, he and his father, Hafez al-Assad, have done absolutely nothing. I don’t want to be misunderstood. I’m not saying they should have. I’m just stating the fact that they did nothing. We don’t need more violence and more missiles. But that has also been a harsh wake-up call for Hizbollah’s popular base in Lebanon, for Hamas in Gaza, that, you know, everybody has their own calculations. And Bashar al-Assad has decided there’s nothing for him to gain from entering this battle, even though he shares a border with Israel and the Golan Heights are still occupied by Israel. But what has really struck me and shocked me is the amount of gloating by Syrians who’ve suffered at the hands of Hizbollah during 10 years of civil war in Syria. With Hizbollah fighting on the sides of Bashar al-Assad and Syrians who’ve lost families, who have been maimed, who have been tortured, who’ve had to go into exile, are now saying to Hizbollah: This is what you get for killing us for so long. So we’re not feeling sorry for you. And it seems to be like a race to the bottom by all sides. And that’s why, again, an appeal for diplomacy to put an end to this madness.
Gideon Rachman
And a final big plan. I mean, the biggest in a way, because they’re so rich, the Saudis and the Gulf states, they’re close by. What are they doing?
Kim Ghattas
Not very much. They’re calling for calm. They’re expressing their support for Lebanon. But you know, they’re also looking at Hizbollah getting decimated and I assume not really shedding many tears because they’re no fan of Hizbollah or Hamas, except that, of course, you know, civilians die in the process. But I think they are very concerned that this could now get out of hand. That if it lasts too long, the Iranians maybe could decide that the time has come to get involved, that the Iraqi Shia militias backed by Iran and Iraq, could decide that it’s time to step it up and the Houthis as well. And that would make Saudi Arabia and the UAE vulnerable to attacks as well. So I think there is a lot of concern with somewhere, some possible hope, always unspoken, that Israel could deal a decisive blow against Hizbollah. But the damage to Lebanon, the civilian casualties that are going to continue rising, are something that we just cannot ignore.
Gideon Rachman
So let’s end then with that thought that you raised that the Saudis may have and the Israelis certainly have, that this access to countries that they often speak of that they fear — Syria, Iran, Hizbollah. Is it possible that a decisive blow is about to be struck against them, is being struck against them?
Kim Ghattas
You know, I don’t think so. I think we should be very careful predicting the demise of the so-called axis of resistance because you have to remember that all they need to do is continue to wreak havoc. You know, victory for them looks very different. I mean, Bashar al-Assad feels victorious, but he’s sitting on top of a pile of rubble, but he’s still sitting there. And for him, that is victory. And so I was very concerned by one sentence in Hassan Nasrallah’s speech last week where for the first time he seemed to indicate that he was ready to sacrifice everything, including Lebanon, for the sake of continuing to defend Palestine. It’s become something about honour and revenge. So that ties back in with my answer at the beginning of our conversation about how do you bring them down from that position. But I think the longer things last, the more civilian casualties in Lebanon. If you have an Israeli ground incursion, the longer this becomes a morass, the more the danger that it lasts and becomes something that does look like a regional all-out war and that will drag in Iran, the Houthis, etc. And there is no decisive blow really here, there are only more civilian casualties. That’s why I think we should try to get this to stop as quickly as possible.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gideon Rachman
That was Kim Ghattas, FT contributing editor, distinguished fellow at Columbia University and author of the book Black Wave, speaking to me from Beirut. Thanks for listening and please join me again next week.
[MUSIC PLAYING]