A full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, similar to the one the two sides fought in the summer of 2006, could entangle Israel and the US in a wider conflict
Me: HAMAS started this. If they had not murdered the Jews and taken others hostage, Gaza would never have happened and peace would have continued.
A full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, similar to the one the two sides fought in the summer of 2006, could entangle Israel and the US in a wider conflict with Iran and its allies. For its part, Iran has used militias – including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and several Shia groups in Iraq and Syria – to strike at Israeli and US targets across the region in an attempt to increase pressure on them to stop the Gaza war.
Israel has all but declared war in the Middle East – a conflict it cannot hope to win
Since October, Biden and his top aides have insisted that their highest priority is to prevent Israel’s invasion of Gaza from spreading into precisely this kind of regional conflagration. But Biden has avoided the most straightforward path to de-escalation on all fronts: for the US administration to withhold some of the $6.5bn in weapons and other security assistance it has promised to Netanyahu’s government since October, and pressure Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. Instead, Biden has squandered the significant leverage he has over the Israeli premier, who some accuse of trying to prolong the Gaza war to dodge a series of corruption charges that have dragged through the Israeli courts for years, and an independent inquiry into his government’s security failures leading up to 7 October.
One of the Biden administration’s biggest mistakes over the past few months has been to frame the protracted ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel as only focused on Gaza, without recognising that all of Iran’s allies in the region, especially Hezbollah and the Houthis, have made clear that they too would stand down once the fighting stops in Gaza.
There has been one sliver of hope in recent weeks: the Biden administration has been signalling to Netanyahu’s government that it may not receive the kind of extensive US military support it would need to launch a full-scale war in Lebanon. But to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah from spinning out of control, the US and its western allies must insist on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – and that Netanyahu stop escalating regional attacks and goading Iran and its allies into a devastating war. The alternative is a descent into further bloodshed and wanton destruction.
Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University
The Guardian
Me: HAMAS started this. If they had not murdered the Jews and taken others hostage, Gaza would never have happened and peace would have continued.