Entering the war is not the same as coming out of it. This applies at the same time to Israel, Hamas, and Hezbullah. After the Gaza war entered its tenth month, the balance of power did not allow Hizbullah, and its mentor the Islamic Republic of Iran, to determine the rules of the game with Israel and set limits on what the Jewish state can and cannot do. As soon as the South Lebanon front was opened on October 8, the rules of the game and the rules which had remained in place for years in the south Lebanon changed by consensus of the two sides.
Because of Hizbullah’s missiles, drones, and various other weapons, more than 60,000 Israelis cannot return to the settlements in which they reside in the areas adjacent to the border with Lebanon. This means, quite simply, undermining the foundations on which the Israeli entity was founded as a “refuge for the Jews of the world.” When these displaced Israelis cannot return to their homes, the following two questions will be raised throughout Israel: Is the entity (Israel) still a safe place for the Jews of the world who wish to live in it or not? Is it permissible, in international terms, for Lebanon to threaten Israel’s existence?
From this standpoint, it is not possible to underestimate what the Hizbullah did when Iran forced it to take a decision to open the southern Lebanon front to support Gaza. Gaza did not benefit from the opening of the southern Lebanese front, as evidenced by what happened to the strip and its people. There is no escape from recognizing that Hamas, by launching the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, destroyed the Israeli theory of deterrence.
The tragedy of Lebanon, at the present time, is that Israel has imposed new rules in its dealings with Lebanon. Here, Benjamin Netanyahu linked his political future to the continuation of the Gaza war. These rules are based on waging a war of attrition which led to the destruction of entire Lebanese villages and the displacement of about one hundred thousand Lebanese from these villages. Who bears responsibility for this tragedy which has made a large portion of the Lebanese population, or even the majority of them, refuse to sympathize with the war waged by Hizbullah and respond to it with unlimited adherence to the culture of life? The Lebanese do not see the war which the Hizbullah is waging as their war as much as it is a war imposed by Iran on Lebanon with its own calculations and objectives.
No Israeli is any more willing to live in the settlements surrounding Gaza, nor is there any Israeli willing to live in settlements close to the unofficially demarcated border with Lebanon. This, of course, raises an existential crisis which Israel is suffering from. This crisis explains the brutality to which the Jewish state resorts in its dealings with Gaza, a brutality which has no logic, human feeling, and international law.
It is not possible to underestimate what Hizbullah did when Iran forced it to take a decision to open the southern Lebanon front. There is no doubt that “Hamas” dealt a strong blow to Israel, shook the [By KhairallahKhairallah in Asas Media]