Listening to the numerous and articulate Israeli spokesmen, and watching the conflict in Lebanon on the TV news, one could be forgiven for thinking that Israel, the fourth strongest military power on earth, is quickly wiping out Hezbollah in the killing fields or hills of South Lebanon. The reality, if we like what Hezbollah stands for or not, is that Hezbollah is not going to be wiped out, cannot be wiped out and is gaining many more recruits in Lebanon and massive support throughout the Arab world. Israel with all its military acumen has gone after Hezbollah in panic and in precisely the wrong way.
Comparisons should be made with the United Kingdom’s 30-year conflict with the IRA, which resulted in the deaths of some 3,000 people, mainly living in Northern Ireland. During those years the IRA was massively armed by Libya and became the most effective terrorist organization in the world.
The all-regular British Army deployed thousands of well-led and well-equipped soldiers onto the streets of Northern Ireland, in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people, and the intelligence services had astonishing success in infiltrating their agents into the IRA’s top echelons. Dublin was never bombed nor were the bomb-making factories in the Catholic ghettos of Belfast.
After 30 years the conclusion was that the IRA could not win nor be destroyed, only contained in what it could do. Political talks took place, first through intelligence channels and then with Cabinet ministers.
It is too soon to say if Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, was right or wrong in his terms to send his patrol into Israel to seize two unfortunate Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah claims this was in response to Israel’s killings in Gaza, following the return of the Israeli Army after Israel’s much praised withdrawal. Hezbollah’s enemies say it was following the orders of Tehran, which was looking for a diversionary tactic to draw international attention away from its possible nuclear weapons program, and Sheikh Nasrallah miscalculated Israel’s massive response in Lebanon. I think we will find he does not simply take orders from Iran.
Before the Israelis took their troops out of Lebanon in 2000, mainly under domestic political pressure and certainly much harassed by Hezbollah, that organization made clear it sought not only the release of its own detainees from Israeli jails but also others from Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories. It also declared that its struggle was not only over liberating Lebanon, but a wider struggle for the liberation of the holy places in Al-Quds. It wanted to work with other Muslim Arab groups opposed to Israel including Palestinian resistance groups based in the refugee camps in Lebanon. Of course, one of its primary aims has been to turn Lebanon into an Islamic state.
Sheikh Nasrallah, who took over the leadership of Hezbollah in 1992 at the early age of 32, following the Israeli assassination from the air of his predecessor, has carried out a remarkable transformation of the organization not least in the political field. It has 14 of the 128 seats in the Lebanese Parliament and two representatives in the government.
Hezbollah has up to 600 full-time fighters, many middle-class professional Shiites, and a reserve of up to 10,000 who have had combat training, and some have previously fought the Israelis. With their detailed local knowledge and local support, they represent a small but dedicated and highly disciplined resistance movement able to inflict considerable damage on invading Israeli units.
It is believed Hezbollah launched its rocket attacks on Israel’s northern cities with an armory of some 13,000 rockets that Iran and Syria had supplied. Israel can make the resupply of missiles slow, difficult and dangerous but it cannot stop it.
So far Hezbollah’s missiles have eluded Israel’s Patriot anti-missile batteries. Hezbollah has attacked successfully with a radar-guided missile an Israeli missile boat. I suspect we will see before long they have a few missiles with a range of over 100 miles.
Hezbollah cannot prevent the Israeli Army from moving north through Lebanon toward Beirut if it wants to, but Hezbollah would make sure it pays a high price. Its fighters will withdraw before Israel’s heavy armor and then attack the tanks when they come to a halt. Israel is desperate not to lose too many of its soldiers, many of whom are reservists.
Israel’s grossly disproportionate response in Lebanon has been a boost for Hezbollah and those in the Arab world who oppose Israel’s cruel treatment of the Palestinians. Israel does not wish to speak to Hezbollah, but it will find that Iran and Syria are not about to restrain it. Its American ally is in trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American president has made sure it has precious few reliable friends in the region.
