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.
