On 28 September, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed to have killed Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah during a raid on the armed group’s headquarters in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah confirmed this a few hours later. Immediately afterwards, Iran’s official media reported that the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Abbas Nilforoushan, had also been killed in the ongoing Israeli air strikes on Lebanon. The deaths of Nasrallah and Nilfruzan are a turning point in the disastrous consequences for Hezbollah forces and the IRGC of Israel’s “Northern Offensive” offensive, which lasted for several days, and in Israel’s adventurous challenge to the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance”. It is a serious test of the ability of the “Axis of Resistance” to develop a climate.

Described by Israel as a central element of the “Iranian axis” and by Western scholars as the “beating heart of Hezbollah”, the 64-year-old Nasrallah is the most important non-state actor and regional player who has led the organisation for 32 years and transformed it into a well-armed, political and cross-border fighting force, non-state actors and regional players. Some commentators have even claimed that Nasrallah has dedicated his entire family to Hezbollah’s cause and resistance against Israel, that two of his sisters married senior Hezbollah officials, that his eldest son died at the hands of Israel and his body was confiscated, and that a daughter was buried with him this time.

Nasrallah has performed at least four “miracles” in the Middle East political arena: By resisting and harassing Israel, he enabled Hezbollah to force Israel to end its 18-year illegal occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000, essentially realising the unity of the country’s sovereignty and territory; only parts of the territory, such as the Shab’a farms, remained under Israeli control as part of the Golan Heights. In 2006, he commanded the Hezbollah forces that inflicted heavy losses on the Israeli army in the mountain warfare in southern Lebanon, forcing the latter to achieve a ceasefire. After 2011, he facilitated Hezbollah’s first overseas operation, helped Damascus in its efforts to crush the subversive intentions of the West and the Arab League, and was a key force in the “Russia+Shia Arc” that contributed to the defeat of ISIS. He has been on Israel’s “death list” since 1992, but as a “master of survival” he has managed to escape death for a third of a century.

However, Nasrallah was eventually hunted down and liquidated by Israel. Coming on the heels of the world-shaking wave of “pager wars” and “radio wars” that Israeli intelligence successfully conducted against Hezbollah cadres, this result shows that Israel has finally gained the upper hand in the intelligence war, despite the fact that Hezbollah had the best of everything possible and Nasrallah’s whereabouts were never clear. Israel has achieved superiority in the intelligence war, in cyber and technological warfare, and even in conventional air strikes and counter-air strikes. This fact alone shows that Israel, as a military, technological and scientific powerhouse, has overwhelming superiority over Hezbollah, the militia of a less developed country, and has achieved military superiority by avoiding all-out war and repeating the same mistakes in ground attacks.

According to Israeli media reports, the Israeli Air Force bombing of the Hezbollah headquarters and the killing of Nasrallah was personally approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This alone shows that Israeli military intelligence did not lack the opportunity and capability to physically eliminate Nasrallah, but rather had to choose the most opportune time and think in order to achieve the best results.

The timing of Nasrallah’s elimination, at a moment of “summit” when Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah is entering a heated phase and world leaders are gathered at the United Nations and Netanyahu is directly in front of the largest and most influential audience, is not only a “show-off” for Israel’s superior intelligence and operational capability, but also a double challenge to the international community and the “axis of resistance”: To justify and defend Israel’s continuation of the war, disregarding the fact that it is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes and condemned by the international community for its “belligerence and bloodthirstiness”.

In his speech on the 27th, Netanyahu emphasised: “I had not planned to come here this year; my country is struggling to survive. However, after hearing the lies and slander against my country from many speakers on this podium, I decided to come here to present the facts.” At the beginning of his speech, applause erupted from the pro-Israel group in the hall, while more participants left the hall in protest.

Netanyahu singled out the United Nations and Lebanon as two areas of interaction, telling Iran and the “axis of resistance” that Israel is determined to fight to the end and will not accept a ceasefire in Gaza if its enemies abandon their multi-front offensive. In his speech, he accused the Iranian-led forces of encircling Israel on seven fronts and of being behind many of the problems in the region. Netanyahu also threatened Iran, saying that “there is no place in Iran that Israel’s long arm cannot reach, and this applies to the entire Middle East.”

A senior Israeli official told the British Daily Telegraph that the purpose of Netanyahu’s visit to the General Assembly was to soften the blow of Israel’s air strike on Hezbollah headquarters. Observers believe that Netanyahu’s approval of the major military operation during the UN General Assembly session was intended to show the international community that Israel is strong enough to challenge the Iran-led “axis of resistance”.

The Israeli bombing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran at the end of July was deliberately timed to coincide with the inauguration of Iran’s new president, in order to humiliate and challenge the Iranian authorities. Hamas lacked the strength to avenge Haniyeh’s death, Iran lacked the motivation to repay its blood debt to its Palestinian partners, and Hezbollah avenged Haniyeh’s death and that of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shoukour, who was killed by the Israeli army at almost the same time, by stepping up its attacks against Israel. In a sense, Iran’s restraint and hesitation in the aftermath of the Tehran assassination showed Israel that it has no intention of escalating the conflict and expanding the cycle of retaliation, but Israel has no intention of showing weakness and blaming Iran for Hezbollah’s intensified attacks.

Indeed, the death of the Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Abbas Nilforushan, on the battlefield in Lebanon shows the reality of Iran’s ties with Hezbollah and that Israel does not care whether Iran retaliates or not. Israel’s contempt for the “axis of resistance” in general, and for Iran in particular, is even more open this time, and Iran is cornered: Instead of avenging the death of its long-time ally Nasrallah, Iran must pay a blood debt to its own general Abbas Nilforushan. If nothing is done, Iran’s influence and appeal in the “axis of resistance” camp will be seriously weakened and it will even be seen as a “paper tiger” in the geopolitical game of the entire Middle East.

Following the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforushan, various media outlets, citing alleged Iranian officials, reported that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei had been transferred to a safe location inside the country and that security measures had been tightened. Such reports are illogical and irrational, and more resemble an information and public opinion war created by Israel to damage Iran’s image. This is because, at least for the time being, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei will not be targeted by Israel for removal. At Haniyeh’s funeral on 1 August, Khamenei was reported to have looked up at the sky and feared a drone attack. All these so-called reports denigrating the Iranian leader are in fact designed to create panic and probe Iran’s lower limit in the face of Israel’s constant humiliation.

In any case, Nasrallah’s death is a severe blow to the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is struggling to choose and train a new leader, and it is doubtful who will be able to openly lead the battered Hezbollah and its armed forces in this period of crisis. Nilforushan’s death is a blow to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, but does Iran have the courage to attack US targets with missiles, as it did after the assassination of Soleimani? Will it symbolically attack Israel with missiles and drones, as it did after the bombing of its diplomatic offices in Syria?

If Iran fulfils its previous promises of revenge and retaliates in addition to the deaths of Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforushan, this will inevitably trigger an escalation of direct conflict with Israel. If Iran continues to make verbal threats, its geopolitical credibility will be severely undermined, which will mark a turning point for the “Axis of Resistance”: A coalition that is no match for Israel and, in particular, a new era in which the United States and other Western countries are determined to defend Israel’s security, while Arab countries generally remain on the sidelines.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not changed, the Lebanese-Israeli conflict has not changed, the Syrian-Israeli conflict has not changed and even the Iranian-Israeli conflict has not changed in essence, but the world has changed and the Middle East has changed.

Prof Ma is Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University (Hangzhou). He specialises in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle East politics. He worked for many years as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine and Iraq.

Israel’s nearly year-long operation in Gaza to oust Hamas and rescue hostages has yet to produce its full results, but it appears to have started a war with Hezbollah. At the time of writing (in the early hours of Wednesday 25 September) it had not yet launched a ground operation. Indeed, it did not seem certain that it would, as Hezbollah continued to respond to the intense air strikes on southern Lebanon over the weekend as if it had not been affected.

Although not fully reported in the mainstream media, there were reports that Hezbollah had intensively shelled northern Israel, particularly military targets and the city of Haifa, forcing Israel to evacuate (or shelter) civilians from a significant part of the northern region. In addition, Tel Aviv was also attacked with rockets in response to Israeli air strikes, all without the effectiveness of Israel’s much-vaunted Iron Dome air defence system.

Hezbollah is no pushover

In short, Hezbollah is no pushover, as it has proved in every armed conflict with Israel, and is unlikely to be this time. This organisation, which was born/strengthened in the early 1980s when Israel invaded Lebanon and has repeatedly clashed with Israel, is neither a regular army nor an ordinary guerrilla organisation. Hezbollah, which can use both methods depending on the course of the war, has always forced Israel to retreat by inflicting heavy losses on it, and did so again in the last war in 2006.

If Israel were to launch a full-scale ground operation now, the result would probably be similar. But we see that it is avoiding this as much as possible. In the last clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, which lasted 33 days, Israel started its operation with an intense aerial bombardment, without paying any attention to civilians, children and infants, as it is doing now; but as soon as it started a ground operation, it withdrew with great losses.

So much so that Hezbollah destroyed many Israeli tanks, shot down Israeli helicopters, made it difficult for the helicopters to operate, and was rumoured to have shot down some of the F-16s. On one occasion, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah even went on live television and announced that ‘right now our resistance forces are going to hit an Israeli warship’, at which point a Hezbollah missile quickly neutralised the Israeli warship. As Israel continued its intensive aerial bombardment of civilian settlements despite all warnings, Hezbollah began to attack Israeli settlements, and Hezbollah attacks, first on towns/cities near the Lebanese border, eventually reached Tel Aviv, which Israel never expected. Meanwhile, many of its soldiers were captured by Hezbollah and Israel was forced to withdraw from the war in silence.

The current military-political situation is even more in Hezbollah’s favour

What is the military and political situation now compared to 2006? Hezbollah seems to be in a better position in a war that is starting now than it was in 2006. First of all, it cannot be said that Israel achieved the desired results from its operation against Hamas, which turned into a genocide in Gaza. Genocide against civilians does not necessarily mean achieving the political-diplomatic results of using military force. For example, none of the stated aims of the war, such as rescuing hostages or eradicating Hamas, have been achieved. It is clear that a terrible genocide has taken place, but Hamas is still operational in Gaza and will and will try to harm Israel through ambushes and other methods, taking advantage of a ground operation that Israel will launch against Hezbollah.

On the other hand, another event/development that the Turkish media has almost persistently ignored provides other clues. A few days before Israel remotely detonated the pagers and radios used by some Hezbollah members, the Houthis in Yemen, who have become an important part of the axis of resistance forces, managed to hit Tel Aviv with a hypersonic missile from two thousand kilometres away.

This was particularly important because hypersonic missiles are not even in the West’s inventory. The most advanced missiles in the world are in the inventories of Russia and China, but Iran has also managed to build one. This missile, fired from Yemen, travelled more than two thousand kilometres across the Red Sea, probably passing through or close to the American navy, and hit Tel Aviv in eleven minutes. The reason for the ineffectiveness of Israel’s air defence system, Iron Dome, is that such missiles are virtually invisible on radar and/or the West does not have missiles fast enough to counter them. In the event of a ground war with Hezbollah, it is highly likely that the Yemeni Houthis will launch more of these missiles, putting Israel in a difficult position. We know that the Western naval force deployed against the Houthis is hardly effective.

It should also be noted that there are elements of the Axis of Resistance in Iraq and Syria. We must expect them to take part in the war to some extent, with drones in their hands, and to side with Hezbollah against Israel. From a political point of view, the conditions are much less favourable for Israel than they were in 2006. First of all, Israel, and especially Netanyahu’s government, has become a pariah in the eyes of world public opinion and many governments. Even in the United States, both public opinion and a significant part of the American elite are highly critical of Israel.

At first glance, this would not have much impact in a land war between Hezbollah and Israel, but it would undoubtedly have a negative psychological impact on Israeli citizens. It should be noted that since the Hamas attack of 7 October and the subsequent operations in Gaza, a significant number of Israeli citizens, many of them also citizens of other countries, have left the country. This process must have been accelerated by the rockets fired by Hamas and the ease with which Hezbollah can fire rockets at Israel, especially in low-intensity conflicts between Hezbollah and Israel. Regionally, perhaps the only change in Israel’s favour since 2006 is that the Syrian state has been weakened by a dirty war that Turkey has supported against its own interests. And in the coming days we will have a better idea of how this will affect a war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Multipolarity and the stabilisation of the collective West

The inevitable emergence of multipolarity as the new world order will have important consequences for the region and for Israel, because multipolarity means balancing the superiority of the collective West, primarily in the military sphere, but also in the economic and technological spheres, the first signs of which we are already seeing. Particularly at a time when the United States is engaged in a power struggle with Russia on the one hand and China on the other, its aid and support for Israel may not be as extensive as it is during election periods. In fact, as some Jewish organisations have noted, issues such as the rapid change in the profile of the American electorate and the focus of voters on the economy, which is not doing well, may have a serious impact on Israeli-American relations in the near future.

It may not be possible for Israel to continue its current policies of genocide, massacre, ethnic cleansing, war, etc. in the medium term if it is squeezed between the forces that define themselves as the Axis of Resistance, led by Hezbollah, on the one hand, and the Arab states that are waging a political/diplomatic struggle against the current Israeli government, which rejects a two-state solution, on the other. In short, Israel is moving rapidly towards its own demise.

There is no doubt that in order to reverse this process, a complete ceasefire in Gaza is needed, followed by serious and comprehensive steps towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. For example, if Israel had fully implemented the two-state model in the Oslo peace process, the Hamas issue would have remained an internal matter for the Palestinian state and the Palestinian political leadership. And Hezbollah and the other Axis of Resistance forces and Iran would have lost legitimacy, which is the most important element in the struggle against Israel. But the question is: can a forward-looking, visionary government in Israel, with the support of the people, initiate such a peace process? At the moment, unfortunately, we are going through a period in which hopes are very low.

China’s diplomatic moves over the past year have set alarm bells ringing in the collective West. First, the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries on both sides of the Gulf last year (May 20-23), after decades of conflict, was a major diplomatic achievement, even if the West tried to underestimate this big splash… Because at the time of the Shah, a close friend of the US, Iran was on one side of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia and the Arab states on the other, and almost all of these states were allies of the US (except for Iraq under Saddam Hussein), but the Washington administrations could not reconcile these friends/allies and did not even try to do so properly…

Since US strategies are not based on reconciling states and sharing resources according to the principles of justice, they did not try to do so between Turkey and Greece. It was more in line with America’s geopolitical logic to exploit the contradictions between its allies in the Gulf, the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. We can clearly see that they are still doing so between Turkey and Greece.

China’s achievements in regional diplomacy were not limited to this. In May this year (2024), China and the Arab League countries met in Beijing at the level of foreign ministers. Some Arab states, notably Egypt, attended the meeting at the level of heads of state. China’s appeal to the Arab countries and especially to the Palestinians as an ‘oppressed nation’ seemed to be enough to win their hearts. China’s harsh criticism of Israel and the West’s collective sins in Gaza not only represented a line consistent with its previous policy, but also helped win the hearts of all Arabs. Moreover, the fact that China looked at the Palestinian issue from the perspective of the Arab side and had no hidden agenda of its own made these diplomatic initiatives both possible and fruitful.

About two months later (23 July 2024), the news broke that China had brought together and reconciled fourteen Palestinian resistance organisations, mainly Fatah and Hamas, to put aside their differences and fight together. In media terms, the news was a bombshell. None of this could/could have been done by the US or any other Western country, because it was almost impossible for Washington to achieve such a success, as the US has never respected the legitimate rights of the Arabs/Palestinians and has always been thought to act with the idea of forcing or deceiving the Arabs/Palestinians.

Africa Summit disturbs the collective West

The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which came on top of all these successful diplomatic moves, seems to have disturbed the peace of the former colonialist Western countries, especially America. In fact, the summit in question has been held eight times since 2000, the ninth in Beijing (4-5 September 2024). There is no doubt that one of the main reasons why this summit has become so prominent in the media is the extraordinary strain on the collective West caused by the establishment of a multipolar system and the fact that the American-led unipolarity is inevitably coming to an end. Another reason must be the above-mentioned consequential diplomatic moves by China, which will play a decisive role in the multipolar world order.

To put it bluntly, the collective West’s analyses and assumptions about both China and Africa over the past three decades have been completely wrong. What we were told about China and Africa in 1996, when I first went to the US for about a month on an American government programme, seems to describe quite well what is happening today… Throughout our trip, which included a week in Washington, a week in San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, which was very famous and important at the time, then five days in Minnesota and five days in New York, the briefings we received in both official institutions and think tanks and lobbying firms, we were told that Africa was not on the West’s radar, that China was a country that produced socks, textiles, T-shirts, etc. that China is a country that produces socks, textiles, T-shirts, etc.; that it is a free market economy. China is a country that produces socks, textiles, T-shirts, etc.; if it continues to develop with a free market economy, it will experience great changes and transformations, and it will not be able to sustain the current planned economic system.

However, in the thirty years that have passed, China has not remained a country producing cheap textiles and children’s toys as expected, nor has Africa continued to struggle in its own way, off the world’s radar. In particular, China’s investments in Africa and its economic and trade relations with African countries have put the continent on the world’s radar. African countries whose resources had been largely exploited by the former colonial powers, France and Britain, and whose regimes were ruled by dictatorships supported by these states, were introduced to a new international trade and economic practice by the new opportunities offered by China and the political pressure it did not exert.

China, once thought to be a country of simple textiles and light industry, and now thought to be ethnically fragmented, has become one of the world’s giants. Its economic and planned development programme, based on manufacturing and exports, has not only made it the world’s second largest economy, but has also made China a world leader in high-tech production and innovation. As many experts have pointed out, China is no longer competing with the United States and Europe, because China has won this race by a landslide.

One of the most important factors favouring China over Western countries in Africa is the fact that Beijing does not make political demands when granting loans or building infrastructure facilities. Moreover, it does not exploit the disagreements and contradictions between states, as the Western powers have always done, and it does not organise minorities within each state and incite them against their own states under the pretext of democracy, human rights and freedoms. These dirty methods, which have been used everywhere except in the states of the collective West, have cost many countries dearly and have even caused turmoil that has led to the disintegration of some of them.

China’s thesis that there should be cooperation between civilisations, intensive contacts between peoples, and that each civilisation should learn from the other, in contrast to the West’s insistence that one civilisation and culture is superior to all others, is also appreciated by Africans. When this civilisation initiative, which is one of the most important factors behind China’s successive successes in its Middle East initiatives, is taken together with the global security initiative and the global development initiative developed by Chinese leader Xi, one can better understand why Beijing has a complete advantage over the collective West in Africa.

Ninth forum

This year’s ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) also witnessed new initiatives from Beijing, which has built tens of thousands of kilometres of roads, thousands of kilometres of railways, numerous schools, hospitals and factories on the continent. For example, China announced that it had allocated fifty billion dollars in new investment/financing to Africa. On the other hand, it has announced that it will allow Africa and the world’s poorest countries to sell their products to China at zero tariffs, both of which represent serious investment in the real economy and indicate that the areas of cooperation between China and Africa will broaden and deepen.

Just as a strong, developed and consolidated China has emerged, while Washington has squandered its own resources and wasted trillions of dollars on wars led by the American deep state and largely instigated by the Israeli lobby, which in the last thirty years, under the pretext of democratisation, has made many countries, notably Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, vomit blood under the guise of democratisation stories, African states have discovered that they have an alternative. It is likely that Africa, where states such as Russia on the one hand and Turkey on the other, in addition to China, are trying to create a sphere of influence, is now on the world’s radar and will not go away.

But this radarisation will take place in a way that excludes the patronising attitude of the collective West that says ‘Africa is not on our radar’. As one Zambian analyst succinctly put it, American officials are landing at Chinese-built airports, driving on Chinese-built roads and holding meetings in Chinese-built buildings to tell Africans why they should not cooperate with China. The African peoples, now on the world’s radar, seem to be putting the propaganda of democracy, freedoms, etc. into the mouths of Westerners, especially those who turn a blind eye to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and will continue to cooperate with China in real economic areas with increasing volume and enthusiasm.