Hezbollah

Everywhere you turn in conversations about Israel, Gaza, Jews and antisemitism right now, the long-promised specter of expansion and escalation is... well... escalating. More than nine months into Israel’s war with Hamas, the rhetoric of conflict and activism has escalated into violent confrontations on the battlefields of war, politics and protest.   Across Israel’s northern flank, for instance, its months-long flare-up with Hezbollah is quickly escalating into an all-out war as the Iranian-backed militia killed a pair of Israeli civilians last week via rockets launched from Lebanon.

Rmeich, Lebanon On October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre further south, Hezbollah started firing rockets into northern Israel, reviving the world’s most dangerous game of chicken. What exactly has been accomplished? Hezbollah’s Shia supporters may be comfortable with their leader Hassan Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsor, head of state Ali Khameini, risking open war. But no one consulted the local Christians, who would never agree to spill Lebanese blood as a supportive gesture to Hamas. “The south [of the country] belongs to Lebanon, and Hezbollah cannot go to war on behalf of the Lebanese,” says Marc Saad, a spokesman for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party and Hezbollah opponent.

Naquora, Lebanon Tensions along the forty-nine-mile Blue Line that partitions Israel from Lebanon are as high as they’ve been in recent history. Given the stated objectives of Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite militia that controls Lebanon’s South and the IDF, which seeks to repel them beyond striking distance, that's saying a lot. Ten thousand sky-blue helmets stand between the warring sides, protecting a division of international troops from the raining debris of intercepted rockets. Nobody is targeting them, but collateral damage is inevitable in a region that sees fatal exchanges on a daily basis. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was established in 1978 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

When a long-silent former president finally speaks out, the public listens. So do foreign leaders, especially when the former president is closely tied to the current one. That’s why Barack Obama’s comments on the war in Gaza attracted attention.  Anyone who remembers President Obama’s foreign policy knew what to expect: criticism of Israel and a delicate dance around Iran’s malign behavior. In fact, he did not mention Iran at all. He totally ignored their role. His audience expected him to add a few words of moral self-righteousness, warning Israel about future civilian casualties, as if Israeli Defense Forces hadn’t taken enormous and costly steps to avoid them.

It took Barack Obama less than three months to fly to the Middle East for a visit, landing in Iraq to visit the tens of thousands of US troops stationed there at the time. Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president was to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also three months into his tenure), where he basked in the limelight, watched in awe as his face was plastered on buildings in Riyadh, and hovered over a glowing orb with King Salman. Now, eighteen months into his presidency, Joe Biden will be spending a few days this week in the region, making stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

‘Come in.’ Burly, brisk and maskless, Mike Pompeo indicates a chair before the marble fireplace. ‘It’s all right if we’re six feet — or two meters — apart.’ We are meeting at the State Department the day after Pompeo’s return from Qatar, where US negotiators have opened discussions with the Taliban and other Afghan factions on an end to the war in Afghanistan. It’s also the day before the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. Cheerful and perhaps a little tired, Pompeo exudes forceful confidence: a man who knows what needs to be done. As Secretary of State since 2018, Pompeo has been the strategist who has translated Trump’s generalities into the specifics of policy.

Beirut It seems that American planes were actually on their way to bomb Iranian targets last night when they were called back. That’s what the New York Times was told by a senior official in the administration, speaking anonymously of course. ‘Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down.’ Was this President Trump or the Pentagon? It’s possible that the US military suddenly learned of a vulnerability in some part of their forces spread around the Middle East, in Bahrain, in Iraq, or in Syria, but then again, they’ve had time to prepare. More likely, this was Trump.

Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, was in Tehran on Monday. The ‘Iran conflict’, Maas said, is ‘one of the biggest conflicts of our time’. No one wants war with Iran. But what would peace with Iran look like — and what exactly needs to be pacified? The degree to which Maas’s statement was at once accurate and not accurate suggests the tricky nature of the ‘Iran conflict’. Iran’s forces are minimally engaged in conflict, but Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah especially, are everywhere engaged: in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, and across Europe. On Sunday, news from London showed how the Iranian regime uses its proxies to play a double game with the West.