Episode Notes:

Following Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, tensions have risen between Israel and other Iran-backed proxies in the region, including Hizballah. This weekend, violence intensified on the Israeli-Lebanese border, with Hizballah firing missiles into Israeli territory and Israel responding with artillery fire and airstrikes. Iran has also threatened to directly intervene if a planned Israeli ground offensive in Gaza goes forward. Hanin Ghaddar, the Friedmann senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, joined the WarCast to tell us more. 

[:55] What has been happening between Hizballah and Israel?

[3:03] How does Hizballah stand to benefit?

[6:56] Will Hizballah escalate?

[9:41] Will Israel escalate?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the Warcast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know now.

Following Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7th, tensions have been on the rise between Israel and other Iran backed proxies in the region, including Hezbollah. This weekend, violence intensified on the Israeli-Lebanese border, with Hezbollah firing missiles into Israeli territory and Israel responding with artillery fire and airstrikes. Iran has also threatened to directly intervene if a planned Israeli ground offensive in Gaza goes forward.

Here to tell us more about this is Hanin Ghaddar, the Friedmann Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Welcome to the Warcast.

Hanin Ghaddar: Thank you very much for having me.

Erin O’Brien: Why don't you start off by giving us a bit of a context. What has been happening between Hezbollah and Israel in the past 10 days or so?

Hanin Ghaddar: Since the beginning of the Gaza War, there have been every day, daily, at least once a day, clashes along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Somebody starts, the other responds or vice versa, and the responses so far, or the attacks, let's say the clashes, along the Lebanese-Israeli border from both sides have been extremely calculated in a sense that Hezbollah wants to be part of the war. They want to take credit and reap the benefits of the war, but they do not want to be fully engaged in a full-scale war because they know what that could mean for them, so they have been using the same rules of engagement, rule of the game, that was set after the 2006 July war.

They haven't really gone beyond these limits. It's been limited to this arena, and they've also been using the strategy of plausible deniability in the sense that sometimes they say, "It's not us, it's the Qassam Brigades or Hamas affiliated factions in Lebanon," in order to make sure that they are sending the message that they are being engaged, they need to take credit of being engaged, but they do not want to lose what they have, and their spokespersons, spokeswoman actually, when things got really escalated, yes, they have a spokeswoman, Rana Sahili, one of the spokespersons they have, immediately after two days ago, there was more of an escalation. She feared that this was going to be taken wrong. She immediately came out and say, "This is not an escalation. This is not Hezbollah going to war. This is just a warning," so it was obvious. All the indications like this are saying that Hezbollah does not want to be involved in a large full-scale war, at least not yet.

Erin O’Brien: Okay, and you mentioned this. What does Hezbollah stand, or how does Hezbollah stand to benefit from this? What are those benefits that they could reap?

Hanin Ghaddar: When I say Hezbollah, I mean Hezbollah and Iran, right, because this is an Iranian decision obviously. Hezbollah has the leeway to decide on domestic Lebanese politics. Hezbollah has a much more freedom to make decisions inside the Lebanese political arena, but when it comes to wars, decisions of war and peace, especially this kind of involvement which could lead to a regional war, it's an Iranian decision. This is not Hezbollah decision, and the way this is happening, they both have reaped a lot of rewards from this war. They have gained a lot from this war without having actually to pay any costs.

Hamas started this. Hamas, on October 7th, decided to drag Israel into a war by doing all that with some miscalculations with the hostages, thinking that Israel will be restrained. That didn't work, but the Palestinians basically are paying for this. Iran's not paying for it, Hezbollah's not paying for it, but what they gained is the following.

One, that the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal is frozen now. It's frozen as a deal, but also it's not like the deal itself was a culmination of a process of linking Israel to the Arab world, to Asia with the economic prospects of a new Middle East where you have Israel, the Gulf States linked to Europe and the West and Asia, and with a very clear economic plan, while Iran was feeling a lot more isolated than ever, and the message that Iran got was, if you want to control these four countries, which is Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and you want to use them as if... you've been using them as a bargaining chip with the West and negotiate any kind of deal with the West, this is not working anymore. Take these four countries, a new Middle East is moving in a different direction and that's what's been happening.

They've realized that they really cannot use Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen the way they used to use them before. No one caress anymore, and the countries are in shatters and they cannot save them. They wanted to show everyone that they still have a card they can play and they actually succeeded in that, so this is the first gain.

The second gain is that they've always been responding to, saying, responding to Israeli attacks in Syria, but also covert attacks inside Iran, allegedly covert attacks inside Iran, that they are going to respond, they are going to respond, and they haven't, and everybody was making fun of them, and they have responded, so in a way this kind of response not only to save face, but also to revive and reenergize the resistance narrative within their constituency and communities in all these countries, which worked as well, and you can see a lot of people now are feeling a lot more energized.

The resistance narrative, which really have been put on hold and made people feel very down, even within Hezbollah's circles and fighters' community, you hear a lot of disappointment with like, "We're here to fight Israel and liberate Palestine. What are we doing?" So this is also work for them. Iran today feels that it has an edge in the region. It regained some kind of an edge, and it will use this, translate these gains and political gains in the region, hoping that this is going to translate of more power for it in the region itself, but also within the international community where they can say, "We still have cars. We didn't lose everything."

Erin O’Brien: So to sharpen that edge as it were, do you expect Iran, Hezbollah in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to intensify these attacks, to escalate? I know you just wrote a piece for Foreign Policy about this.

Hanin Ghaddar: To sharpen this edge they have to escalate the threats. In these sensitive situations, very risky calculations, mistakes happen, miscalculations lead to big wars. Things like this happen all the time, but they also understand two things. One, especially now that the US response was not expected. They really miscalculated the US response. They knew that the US, knowing that the shaky relationship between the Biden's administration and Netanyahu's government, they didn't realize that it will be this kind of cooperation. They didn't realize that the Americans will be back in the Middle East that way. They expected a lot of support from the US government, the West, diplomatic support. They expected a lot of aid probably, but they really didn't expect this kind of military presence, this kind of military rush to the Middle East. That was a serious miscalculation by them, and they are deterred by this presence, and the more of it the better because this is the main thing that's actually deterring them, but they also, the other factor that they have, two more calculations they have.

One is that their weapons today, especially their precision missile weapons that take a very long time and lots of resources to make actually, they've been working on this for years and they only have a few dozen precision missiles. It's a very difficult missile to produce, and most of it has been moved to Lebanon because of the Israeli strikes in Syria. They know that the missiles are stronger as a threat, a lot stronger as a threat. To use them means that you will lose them, so they'd rather keep these missiles pointed at Israel, using this to sharpen the edge, and they know that if they do more than that, not only they will lose that edge, not only Iran will lose the most valuable, strongest bargaining chip it has, but Hezbollah will be dragged into a regional war with no guaranteed victory to claim, with definitely a lot of losses to endure, and no guarantees for reconstruction of their own arsenal, compensations for their own constituency or reconstruction of Lebanon. They cannot afford that.

Erin O’Brien: And what about the Israeli side? Do you expect Israel to increase its attacks on Hezbollah?

Hanin Ghaddar: I don't think so. I think also from the Israeli side no one wants that kind of front to open, or from the Golan, but the Israelis are also sending a clear message that if you want to do this, we are ready, so that's why it's calculated from both sides. The Israelis has to tell the Hezbollah that they don't mind opening this front also, for deterrence.

Everybody's playing this game of deterrence, but engagement and deterrence, that this is where things can go wrong anytime because it's a very risky daily engagement, but I think on the long-term something has shifted in Israel's Hezbollah-Iran policy, but also generally in the West and the US. You can tell that everybody realizes today, or should realize today, that this is not going to be over. This battle is not going to be really won.

The other risks in the region are not dealt with, so when you deal with Hamas and you really, even if the best say, case scenario, Hamas is gone and Gaza is no longer a danger, which is very difficult to achieve, but let's assume that this happened, right, same things can happen from Lebanon, the same thing can happen from Golan, so if you really want to resolve this, you really have to resolve the whole Iranian danger in the region, and Iran should be held responsible for this.

I think this is where the long-term thinking is today is... the short-term strategy is to focus on Gaza, not open a Lebanese front, because no one wants to be overwhelmed with this and the US does not want to be dragged into a regional war, so this is the short-term strategy, but when things calm down and people have time to actually reflect and think long-term strategy, I think this is where things will go or at least should go in order to tackle this larger threat.

Erin O’Brien: Well, it does seem then that we have quite a lot to look out for, but thank you so much for coming on the Warcast to explain this all to us.

Hanin Ghaddar: Definitely, and this is a developing story. All of this might change tomorrow and things, or keep coming. Happy to come back to this anytime.