Can Israel win?

 

There has, in the past days, been no shortage of experts telling us that it is enough for Hezbollah to stand up to Israel and survive in order for it to achieve victory. This is based on the assumption that a victory lies in the eyes of the beholder and that the relevant beholder is the Arab street. An Associated Press article published today carries a quote from retired Lebanese General Elias Hanna that sums it up: "Hezbollah wins if it doesn't lose. And Israel loses if it doesn't win".

My definition of an Israeli victory in this conflict, and I think that this is also the definition of the Israeli government, would be for the Lebanese front to go permanently quiet. Whether Hezbollah is destroyed or not is, in itself, of little interest to Israel, although it is certainly important for Lebanon’s internal balance. Of course, if they survive as a military force, Hezbollah might be able to sell the whole episode to the Arab public as a victory. At the end of the day, however, what the Arab street thinks is probably not as important as some journalists and observers seem to think. Arab leaders are not known for being particularly democratic and are for the most part fairly rational (where their own survival is concerned). None of them will rush into a guaranteed military disaster simply because the Arab street gets the false impression that Israel is weak and that it can be defeated.

The question remains, will Israel actually manage to achieve long-term quiet on the Northern Front? This blogger is of the humble opinion that it will. If Hezbollah ends up having to accept a demilitarized zone in Southern Lebanon it will lose the most important means it has of keeping the front open – cross-border raids. The rockets, which it would still be able to fire from anywhere in Lebanon, have in fact proven to be quite a flop. Two weeks of daily Katyusha barrages have led to the death of less than 20 Israeli civilians (not much more than a single suicide bombing would have achieved) and no appreciable softening of Israeli public opinion. The rest of Lebanon has paid a high-enough price for this meagre result that they will probably make it extremely difficult for Hezbollah to use its rockets to provoke further conflict in future.

Still, I would maintain that the achievement of long-term quiet in the North should be but an intermediate goal. As long as full peace is not achieved with Syria, the potential for mischief in the North and on the Palestinian front will remain. Peace between Israel and Syria would terminate Hezbollah, end the maximalist dreams of Hamas and deal a severe blow to Iran's growing power in the region. That is why I think that it is a great pity that Syrian-Israeli peace talks remain off the agenda for the foreseeable future.