Don't Say You Weren't Warned

If you want a two-state solution, pay close attention to what’s happening in the north.

Last week, dozens of people attended the annual Tel Hai Memorial Ceremony commemorating the famous Battle of Tel Hai, in which eight Jews were killed in clashes with Arabs close to what is now the border with Lebanon. Among the dead was the one-armed Joseph Trumpledor, whose last words were supposedly “It is good to die for our country” (or, some claim, “fuck your mother” in Russian). Some consider this to be the opening shot in what is now known as the Arab-Israeli Conflict; others argue that the clashes had a more localized context. Either way, Tel Hai has become a key site in Zionist mythology.

This year’s ceremony, though, was organized unofficially after the government, in the face of ongoing attacks from Hezbollah, cancelled the official ceremony. It’s played second fiddle to the war in Gaza, but since October 7 80,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in the north (I wrote about one community whose residents have mostly remained here), while 91,000 people living in south Lebanon have been displaced. Eight civilians and 10 soldiers have been killed in Israel; more than 250 Hezbollah fighters and an estimated 40 civilians have been killed in Lebanon. This is the most serious and sustained conflict between Israel and Hezbollah since the Second Lebanon War.

What’s happening in the north deserves greater global attention, because without addressing the problem of Hezbollah it will be impossible to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, having occupied the south of the country since 1985. Remember: the received wisdom is that Israel’s occupation of territory is the primary cause of the conflict. But Israel withdrew from Lebanon and still faces a terrorist entity that is devoted to its destruction.

According to Sarit Zehavi from the Alma Research and Education Center, prior to October 7 Hezbollah had an estimated 220,000 warheads, including 145,000 mortar shells, 65,000 rockets, and 10,000 mid-to-long range missiles and rockets, hundreds of which are advanced conventional weapons, including precision-guided munitions. It also had more than 2,000 unmanned aerial vehicles. All told, this arsenal is around 10 times what Hamas had before October 7. Hezbollah also had around 50,000 fighters and tens of thousands of reserves, including its elite Radwan Unit, who are responsible for cross-border invasions, in other words October 7 sequels.  

The ostensible excuse for Hezbollah’s stance towards Israel is the Shebaa Farms area (pictured above), known as Har Dov in Hebrew, a small strip of land (11 kilometers long and 2.5 kilometers wide) located at the intersection of the Lebanese-Syrian border and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Due to a failure to properly demarcate the Lebanese-Syrian border, there is a debate as to whether it was originally Lebanese or Syrian; Israel considers it to be part of the Golan Heights. Conveniently, Hezbollah has used the Shebaa Farms to argue that the Israeli withdrawal was incomplete.

Whatever one’s position on this issue, this is a minor land dispute; there are dozens of these kinds of disagreements between countries. The real problem, though, is Hezbollah’s violent opposition to Israel’s existence. While it is true that, given the First Lebanon War and the lengthy occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is to some degree a problem of Israel’s own making, this does not excuse the ongoing existence on Israel’s border of such an organization, armed by Iran. How many terrorist organizations continue to exist like this after successfully liberating their territory?

October 7 placed Hezbollah in a bind. On the one hand, they do not seem to have known in advance about the Hamas invasion. The timing was not right for a proper war with Israel, given the conditions in Lebanon and the destruction that would result. On the other hand, once the Israeli response began, given their position in the Arab world, they could not have been seen as standing to the side. This resulted in the pattern that has held ever since: Hezbollah has launched an average of 50 attacks per week, mostly within a five-kilometer radius from the border. Israel has responded to these attacks, often penetrating up to 100 kilometers into Lebanon, and – where possible – targeting senior figures. There is no doubt that Hezbollah is suffering from these encounters, but Israel has been unable to change the equation whereby the north has been almost completely denuded of its residents.

There has been much excitement about the UNSC Ramadan ceasefire resolution, making it timely to recall UNSC Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War. Among other things, it called for “security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.” It also requires the “disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state,” and “no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government.”

Examining this resolution from today’s vantage point, and considering UNIFIL’s abject failure to achieve these goals, one understands why Ben Gurion famously dismissed the UN as “Um-Shmum.” It is even more galling when one considers how those who speak so often about the importance of international resolutions fail to mention this problem. And it should be of extra concern to those who want to see an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and now (again) Gaza.

As I argued earlier this week, most Israelis’ main concern about withdrawing from the West Bank is that they will face a similar scenario to the one they have faced in Gaza and Lebanon. The current situation is intolerable. Despite the efforts of the US mediator Amos Hochstein, who was involved in the controversial deal to demarcate the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel, so far diplomacy has failed, and while it may be that the fighting in Lebanon will simply persist until the war in Gaza ends, miscalculation could lead to an escalation into a war even more destructive than the one in Gaza (according to some estimates thousands or even tens of thousands of Israeli civilians would die in a full-blown war with Hezbollah, with higher casualty figures on the Lebanese side).

Israel’s government obviously can’t let the war in Gaza prevent residents of the north from returning to their homes and has threatened a wider escalation. If this happens, as usual, Israel will be blamed for being a warmonger while nobody will state the plain fact that Hezbollah’s existence on Israel’s northern border is both intolerable and flagrantly illegal. And if the international community can’t do anything about it then there will be no other option than war, because despite the inevitable opprobrium, it will be far better to strike on our own terms than wait for Hezbollah to carry out their own version of October 7.

Zehavi argues that what is needed is an “empowered and effective international force, one with the authority and will to operate unimpeded across South Lebanon, including within “no-go zones” or “private territories” that Hezbollah has turned into weapons caches and rocket launching sites, many within populated areas using the Lebanese people as human shields, much like Hamas does in Gaza.” This is a sensible idea, but it’s unlikely to happen. Far more likely is a repeat of the formula we have seen in Gaza: the use of liberated territory as a military base against Israel, a harsh Israeli response, calls for a ceasefire, rinse and repeat. The international community loses credibility when its calls for Israeli restraint aren’t accompanied by practical action to remove the Islamist threat that threatens Israel’s existence. Failure to take this issue more seriously will result in yet another war. At least nobody will be able to say they weren’t warned.