Lebanon as Netanyahu's political graveyard

(Haaretz; Peščanik.net)

Lebanon was Benjamin Netanyahu's political graveyard during his first term. The complicated situation in Lebanon was not his fault: he inherited from his predecessors a security zone, dangerous strategic points and dead soldiers. But he failed to notice the shift in public opinion after the helicopter crash and the Ansari ambush in 1997, which exposed the useless presence of soldiers in Lebanon and sparked the successful "Four Mothers" protest.*

Netanyahu considered withdrawing from the Lebanese security zone, but did not dare. The one who understood the moment and seized the opportunity was his opponent Ehud Barak, who had previously failed to impose himself (as they called it at the time) as opposition leader because he had not provided a convincing political alternative to replace Likud. A few months before the 1999 elections, Barak announced on Dan Margalit's show that, if elected prime minister, he would withdraw the Israeli army from Lebanon within a year.

This was a turning point in his campaign. Barak then defeated Netanyahu and, unusually for Israeli politics, kept his word by ordering a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in June 2000, less than a year after he was sworn in.

The right-wing has portrayed the withdrawal from Lebanon as an embarrassing withdrawal that has weakened Israel, strengthened Hezbollah, and emboldened the Palestinians to launch a second intifada. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s defeat in the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Hezbollah’s rise to power since then have seemingly confirmed this view. But despite bellicose rhetoric, constant reports of a growing enemy, and preparations to seize the Galilee, Netanyahu has stuck to the status quo and has not expanded militarily northward.

The war of October 7, 2023 and the operational successes against Hezbollah, the pager attack and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah have awakened the territorial appetites of Netanyahu, his coalition partners and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. They have decided to apply the model of the First Nakba of 1948 and the Second Nakba of Gaza to southern Lebanon: the expulsion of the population and the destruction of villages. The Shiites will become refugees, the Druze and Christians can stay, much like in the Galilee after 1948.

In contrast to the original security zone, in which the army operated together with the Lebanese population, preparations are now being made for a prolonged occupation and the expansion of Israel's borders. In such a situation, Hezbollah is fighting for its home and showing operational resourcefulness despite the great strength of the Israeli army, as it did in the 1990s. Nasrallah's successor, Naim Qassem, described in Israel as a frivolous and weak man, has proven to be an equally challenging opponent.

Israel's problem goes beyond finding a technological answer to drones that threaten its military. It is about the unnecessary deaths of soldiers in a strategically futile war where victory photos from the Beaufort** and the bombing of buildings in Beirut cannot hide the failure. The occupation of southern Lebanon will do Israel no good.

This is where the opportunity opens up for Gadi Eisenkot, the former head of the Israeli army in Netanyahu's war cabinet. Only he, thanks to his military experience and common sense, can guarantee the citizens a way out of the Lebanese mud and an end to the exhaustion on other fronts. Naftali Bennett, his rival for the leadership of the Change bloc, mocked Netanyahu as a coward who did not dare to bomb Daahiya. Why would he do that, Naftali? The alternative you propose for the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government can be summed up as "what could not be done by force, will be done by force."

Eisenkot has been wandering in politics for several years without a clear direction. He is respected but seems to have nothing to say. Now he could be the man of the moment: he is the only one who can end the war and stop the killing and destruction on terms that will be good for Israel. He can seize the moment as Barak did in 1999 and once again turn Lebanon into Netanyahu's political graveyard.

(Translated from the Hebrew by Alma Ferhat)

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* The protest is named after the biblical mothers Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. It was initiated by women living in the northern border region of the country in 1997 after the collision of two helicopters transporting soldiers to the occupied zone of Lebanon and a failed operation when an Israeli special forces unit (Shayetet 13) encountered a deadly ambush by Hezbollah during a mission. These incidents killed about a hundred Israeli soldiers, which sparked a public revolt and increased pressure to leave Lebanon; ed.transl.

** The remains of an old fortress that served as an Israeli base that the army abandoned in the 2000 withdrawal. The event is the subject of Josef Sider's film "Bafur" (2007) about the final months of the army's stay in the Lebanese security zone; ed.transl.