Israel is on dead bed. They can't stand by in war for longer.
Israel is on threat of invasion by its opponents
Regional war isn’t inevitable if the Biden administration delivers a firm message to Israel: The US will provide neither weapons nor funding for an Israeli war on Hezbollah.
Israel’s war in Gaza has reignited regional tensions in the Middle East. In January, Iran-aligned militias in Iraq resumed attacks on US troops after a two-year hiatus, resulting in the
deaths of three American soldiers. Meanwhile, the Houthis effectively blocked the Red Sea to commercial shipping, while ongoing transborder attacks between Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah have kept the region on edge. Until now, however, the brutality of full-scale war has been largely contained within Gaza. Yet Israel’s assassinations of senior Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran this week have made the conflict more dangerous than ever, with the potential to escalate into a bloody regional war that could kills tens of thousands and draw America into a new “forever war” in the Middle East.
Until now, both Iran and Hezbollah’s actions have demonstrated their preference to avoid direct conflict, despite provocative Israeli actions. Tehran, for example, viewed the strike that
killed a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps outside its consulate in Syria on April 1 as a significant escalation, but after sending a barrage of missiles and drones that were largely intercepted, did not pursue further escalation. Hezbollah, too, has consistently sought to stay out of the conflict, even when faced with targeted Israeli strikes on senior figures like
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s brother-in-law and other
strikes deep within Lebanese territory.
So far, Israel has avoided opening a northern front that would complicate its operations in Gaza. The extent to which Israel needed assistance from the US Navy and even Jordan—after Iran’s response to the Israeli attack on its consulate in Damascus—served as a wake-up call for some within Israel’s political and military circles. Still, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, between October and June, Israel conducted
83 percent of the transborder attacks on targets in Lebanon, displacing approximately
90,000 people, while Hezbollah’s attacks on northern
Israel have displaced about
60,000. The Israeli military has approved operations against Hezbollah, and Israel’s latest attacks on senior officials appear intended to goad Hezbollah or even Iran into outright war.
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There’s a dangerous assumption among some within Israel’s government that it can dislodge Hezbollah from Lebanon. A war between Hezbollah and Israel would cause tens of thousands of deaths and trigger a humanitarian crisis. It would also jeopardize the US embassy in Beirut and the safety of thousands of American citizens in Lebanon and Israel. It could trap
86,000 US citizens in Lebanon, a repeat of what happened in 2006 during Israel’s 34-day war with Hezbollah. Even if Israel manages to preemptively destroy or intercept much of Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, it would still face the challenge of dealing with a militant group
deeply embedded in urban areas and equipped with a vast
network of tunnels, much like Hamas. This would be made more difficult by the fact that even some of Israel’s closest allies are thinking of
reducing their military support because of the scale of Israel’s accused war crimes in Gaza.
Regional war isn’t inevitable if the Biden administration delivers a firm message to Israel: The US will provide neither weapons nor funding for an Israeli war on Hezbollah.
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