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Israel Lost the Balance in Lebanon
Israel TV7 has reported that Israeli plans for attacking South Lebanon have been ready for months – plans where the Israeli Airforce would play a “key role”- in other words, fearful of going in with boots, Israel would do a usual, and with little effect (!), namely bombing Hezbollah.
But the go-ahead has been missing – even though Israeli politicians including Netanyahu and the defense minister under public pressure have stated clearly that Israel will impose a “normal” situation in the North either politically (a pipedream) or militarily – but that has been postponed and postponed.
Israel’s latent threat to do like previously, and bomb and kill 35,000 civilians in Beirut is no longer credible – because with 170,000 missiles, Hezbollah can respond likewise and kill large numbers of Israelis inside Israel. Thus a deterrence has been acquired by Hezbollah.
Israel getting tired and losing support – Hezbollah getting stronger and more audacious. The balance which has been talked about in Lebanon, where both parties wanted to keep a lid on escalation, has come to an end.
When one party feels strong enough (Hezbollah, now with open backing from Iran) or doesn’t see any other way out (Israel), things will escalate and explode.
Israel TV7 just reported how Israel instead of wider actions in Lebanon, has focused on targeted killing (by bombing) of key Hezbollah operatives, in order not to provoke a larger escalatory response from Hezbollah. This Israeli Gambit has coming to an end – Hezbollah won’t take it anymore. Therefore, Hezbollah’s recent response over was an unprecedented barrage with 150 missiles and 30 drones on Wednesday 12 June 2024. See this.
The day after, Hezbollah launched more than 100 additional drones and missiles. We must remember that “patience” is also a function of how strong or weak a party is – a party which sees itself as strong has less “patience” and will react more forcefully to lesser transgressions than a weak party.
Israel TV7 also just reported, how Hezbollah not only in number of missiles, but also geographically, has been expanding its missiles attacks on northern Israel the past weeks or months. Previously, it was mostly the northernmost and eastern part of Israel’s north. Now, Hezbollah strikes all of Northern Israel from the Mediterranean over to the Golan Heights, and all the way down to the strategic port and economic center of Haifa.
Hezbollah is also beginning to attack and destroy Iron Dome missile defenses. Israel simply doesn’t have enough air defense – when Iran attacked with some 550 missiles, ships from US, UK, and France intercepted a large part of them, some say up to 50%. Israel cannot rely on US, UK; and France forever stationing high-value ships off their coast to protect what Israel itself alone cannot protect. Then compare 550 missiles from Iran with newly 350 from Hezbollah – that is something. And Israel even had hours and quarters of hours to react, from the missiles and drones were launched in Iran until they arrived in Israel. Due to the vicinity of Lebanon, missiles from Hezbollah give Israel much shorter time, only a few minutes, to react.
Hezbollah is pressing Israel harder … and harder.
The escalation to a large war between Israel and Hezbollah is coming.
And there will be no ceasefire in Gaza to defuse the escalation. Blinken is just running around in a fool’s errand. Israel wants to continue its rampage in Gaza, and Hamas won’t release its only bargaining chip for 6 weeks of silent starvation. Once Israel fights a full war with Hezbollah, Iran has promised to support Hezbollah and “let Hell lose on Israel“.
We are heading towards a full regional war. Recent developments only confirm that the train is locked on track to a big conflict; Israel just killed another Hezbollah operative.
The IDF confirms carrying out a strike against a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon’s Aitaroun this morning.
A video released by the military shows the strike against the operative riding a motorcycle.
כלי טיס תקף מוקדם יותר היום מחבל של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב עיתרון שבדרום לבנון.
בנוסף, צה״ל תקף בירי ארטילרי במרחב עיתרון.
בהמשך לשיגורים לעבר מירון הבוקר, זוהו שתי נפילות במרחב יחידת הבקרה האווירית שבאיזור מירון, אין נפגעים ואין פגיעה בכשירות היחידה pic.twitter.com/EquLmDZd4a
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) June 15, 2024
—Emanuel Fabian, 15 June 2024, The Times of Israel
We are awaiting Hezbollah’s response to the latest Israeli killing of a Hezbollah “operate”. Don’t expect Hezbollah’s answer to de-escalate. Israel cannot handle this. The US cannot either.
Going for the Kill – of Israel
I believe that Hezbollah (and Iran) now go for the kill – of Israel. Not in one fell swoop, but gradually. Cautiously, step-by-step. Note that Israel has completely lost its most valuable military asset, namely deterrence.
- Israel lost its deterrence against Hamas on 8 Oct. 2023. On 7 October 2023, Hamas proved that it was able and willing to strike big on Israeli territory, and that nothing Israel has been able to do, can stop Hamas. Bye-bye Israeli deterrence.
- Israel lost its deterrence against Iran on 13-14 April 2024. On 13 April 2024, Iran took escalatory domination over Israel by sending 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles – a massive total of 320 units – on Israel. And Iran threatened to send “10 times more” if Israel retaliated. This is called “escalatory dominance”, and Iran – not Israel – has got it. Israel couldn’t respond with more than a hiccup.
- Israel now lost its deterrence even against Hezbollah on Wednesday 12 June 2024. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has widened its attacks on northern Israel to the whole area from Haifa to the Golan Heights. On 12 June 2024, Israel also lost deterrence against Hezbollah. On that day, Hezbollah sent more than 200 missiles on Israel. Hezbollah didn’t say it aloud, but the message from Hezbollah was, that “Hezbollah has got 170,000 more of these air weapons, if Israel retaliates”. When Israel the day after responded with some airstrikes in Lebanon, Hezbollah the day after again proved its point and reinforced its message of escalatory dominance and sent an additional 100 drones onto Israel. Once again, like Iran, Hezbollah proved to Israel that Hezbollah – not Israel – has got escalatory dominance. If Israel dares kill scores of civilians in Beirut, like Israel did in 2006 (the Dahiya doctrine), Hezbollah has got over a hundred thousand more missiles to do the same in Israel. After that latest message from Hezbollah to Israel, Israel seems to have understood the point, and Israel merely responded by killing a single unnamed Hezbollah “operative” in an air attack – once again, the Israeli equivalent to a hiccup. See this.
Israel couldn’t deter any of these adversaries from an historically unprecedented large-scale attack directly on Israel. And Israel hasn’t been able to restore deterrence since. At the same time, Israel has made it clear to all of its “friends” in the Region, that Israel will never accept a Palestinian state – a condition without which all further talks with Israel become meaningless.
Israel’s security cooperation with Egypt and Saudi Arabia is cracking up.
Saudi Arabia would like to have a security and economic cooperation with Israel, the US, and a Palestinian state, but without a Palestinian state, and with Israel’s insistence on killing countless civilians in Gaza, this is just not possible, no matter how much Israel’s elite tells itself that the surrounding Arab élites “don’t care” for Hamas or the Palestinians. As for security, Saudi Arabia doesn’t need US or Israel, as Saudi Arabia is finding its own solutions with Iran, backed up by China and Russia.
The commitments to peace from both sides of Iran-Saudi are becoming long-term binding – Iran asks for infrastructure loans from the Arab development bank, that is, from Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia wants to participate in the Iranian mega-port and BRI project in Chabahar, together with Russia, China, and India.
That Saudi Arabia doesn’t need US “security guarantees” anymore, was underscored when Saudi Arabia didn’t extend the 1974-agreement with US, which was both a petro-dollar agreement, but also a US security-guarantee agreement. And as for economics, Saudi Arabia will trade oil in all currencies not just dollars, and get finance for its big infrastructure projects from, of course, China.
Hezbollah, as a consequence, is now taking down Israel, possibly in a Regional war with support openly or covertly not only from Iran, but importantly also from several regional “friends” of US-Israel like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Türkiye.
There will be no ceasefire. There will be no Two-State-Solution. Israel has a lot of resources, this will take long, but it won’t stop.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
