Threats, demands, and ridicules: What does Nasrallah’s speech tell us about his endgame?
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech full of threats, demands, and ridicules against Israel on Wednesday night, as tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border continued to escalate with three Hezbollah members reportedly injured after attempting to damage the border fence.
The northern border has been heating up for months already.
In March, a terrorist affiliated with Hezbollah entered Israel and placed an IED near the Meggido junction, not far from the Green Line. The explosive detonated, seriously injuring an Israeli Arab citizen.
Israeli defense officials have said they responded to that attack, although the nature of the response remains unclear.
In April, a barrage of 34 rockets was fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel. Although the rockets were likely fired by a Palestinian group, they almost certainly received the blessing of Hezbollah.
In recent weeks, Lebanese citizens, including Hezbollah operatives, have continuously scuffled with Israeli forces and maintenance crews working along the Blue Line and the technical fence. During one of those incidents, Hezbollah set up two tents full of armed operatives in Israeli territory, although that fact was only revealed to the public a month later, in about mid-June.
Nasrallah’s speech on Wednesday was his first public address since the tents were erected in Israeli territory. (Or in Lebanese territory if you ask Hezbollah or Lebanese officials)
In the address, the Hezbollah leader made a fairly straightforward threat: If Israel acts against the tents, Hezbollah operatives will respond.
Nasrallah additionally jabbed at Israel, stating: “If the Israeli enemy were as it was before, and would have simply bombed the tent, it would not have been erected, but now the situation has changed and the Israelis did not dare to take a step in the field.”
Nasrallah also mentioned scuffles on the border in which three Hezbollah operatives were reportedly injured, stating that the matter was still under investigation and that the “appropriate action” would be taken after the investigation was completed.
Most of Nasrallah’s speech was focused not on the tents or the border scuffles, but on Lebanon’s claims to a number of points along the Blue Line and Ghajar, a town controlled by Israel which is cut in half by the Blue Line, with the north half in Lebanon and the southern half in Israel.
Referring to Ghajar, Nasrallah warned that Hezbollah “could not remain silent” on the matter and accused Israel of “occupying” the village.
“The land of Ghajar, the Sheeba Farms, and the Kfarchouba hills will not be left to the Israelis. Work must be done to liberate it, and the effort will be shared between the state and the resistance.”
Referring to reports that Hezbollah and Lebanese officials were pushing for talks on demarcating the land border between Israel and Lebanon, Nasrallah stressed that “What is happening now is not the demarcation of land borders with the enemy entity, but rather we demand the withdrawal of the enemy from the occupied Lebanese points.”
In the past week, a number of Lebanese officials, including the foreign minister and the head of the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement, have issued statements rejecting demands to move the tents set up by Hezbollah and demanding that Israel start talks to demarcate the land border between the two countries.
During Nasrallah’s speech, the Hezbollah leader stressed that he intended to conduct efforts to get Israel out of northern Ghajar and the points disputed by Lebanon in coordination with the Lebanese government, comparing the situation to last year’s maritime border demarcation talks.
So amid all of that noise, what might Nasrallah’s endgame actually be?
After all, Nasrallah issues threats and talks big all the time. Is this time really any different?
Well, yes. Nasrallah’s latest speech does indeed appear to be different than its predecessors.
The best comparison may be the speeches he gave during the maritime border demarcation talks. Those speeches largely came well after the talks were underway, appearing to be more of an attempt by Nasrallah to piggyback on what he probably understood was a very likely to be reached agreement, than an attempt to actually near any real conflict. The Hezbollah leader did test the borders a bit during the talks, but largely refrained from anything that could cause casualties.
The current situation, however, is very different.
For one, an Israeli citizen has already been severely injured by a Hezbollah-run operation in Israel in this latest wave of escalation that began earlier this year, i.e. the Meggido bombing.
Additionally, Nasrallah has set a clear red line and a relatively clear response: Touch the tents and our operatives will respond.
But what about his push for an Israeli withdrawal from Ghajar and other sites and his emphasis on conducting efforts on the matter in coordination with the Lebanese government? Doesn’t that seem to imply he’s simply trying to recreate the situation which existed during the maritime border talks?
Not quite.
Nasrallah has created a situation where Israel has been pushed into a corner with Israeli officials forced to decide whether to attack the tents and spark a likely larger conflict which could easily spiral into all-out war or enter negotiations on demarcating the land border.
Now that choice may seem easy on the surface, after all, avoiding an escalation is certainly worth talks, even if they don’t lead anywhere anytime soon, but there’s one glaring problem: the fact that Israel is currently pushed into a corner. If it were to enter negotiations now, it would be setting a precedent. “Push us into a corner and you can press us to abide to your demands.” In this region, that would be a costly mistake.
Additionally, Israel would be entering the talks from a point of weakness, which, even if it doesn’t have effects on the content of the talks themselves, would certainly have an effect on the public’s view of the talks, especially considering that the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spent months lambasting the former government for conducting talks on the maritime border.
But what’s the other option? Well seemingly, it’s war.
On the surface, it seems unlikely Nasrallah would want war. After all, Lebanon’s political and economic crisis is only getting worse and Hezbollah’s image in internal affairs is not doing well. Pulling Lebanon into a war with Israel would seemingly be a recipe for turning the country entirely against Hezbollah, not to mention the immense damage the movement will suffer from fighting with Israel.
But Nasrallah knows that and it appears he’s prepared accordingly, setting the groundwork for a conflict which would at the very least minimize the damage to the public perception of Hezbollah while maximizing the damage to the public perception of Israel.
Nasrallah almost definitely realizes that the Israeli government cannot enter talks in the position it’s currently in. Besides for being bogged down with attempting to pass the judicial reform and the internal crisis swirling around those efforts, Netanyahu cannot afford to enter talks with Lebanon while Israel is backed into a corner like it is now. The State of Israel cannot allow itself to be forced into such negotiations.
Nasrallah also likely realizes that Israel will need to act eventually on the tents if it wants to protect its territorial integrity. That can only be kicked so far down the road, and it’s likely that if Israel waits, Hezbollah will simply find another provocation to move forward with in order to force Israel’s hand.
If that’s the case, and Nasrallah really wants war, then he’s laid a good groundwork in order to do so while presenting the situation favorably to both the Lebanese people and the international community.
If/When Israel attacks, Nasrallah will now be able to state “You see? We gave opportunities for peaceful solutions. We only insisted that Israel recognize internationally recognized boundaries (especially in terms of Ghajar). Now we’re being forced by Israel to protect our territorial integrity against unilateral Israeli moves and aggression.”
With that framework and the fact that the Lebanese government has seemingly decided to line up alongside Hezbollah on the matter of Lebanon’s border with Israel, Nasrallah may be able to regain some of the support he’s lost in Israel and at the very least will likely succeed in intensifying the unrest and anger at the government in Israel.
In either case, no matter which way things go at the moment, Nasrallah can come out favorably, while Israel will have a much harder time doing so, which is likely a major reason for why Israeli authorities have waited so long to act on the tents.
While the reluctance to enter a conflict was understandable, the continuous toleration of provocations from Hezbollah seems to have backfired. Israeli officials will have a difficult time gaining the upper hand without suffering serious penalties both in terms of diplomatic relations and in terms of the internal political and societal crisis which is already severe as it is. However, the longer Israeli officials wait, the worse the consequences of the eventual conflict will likely be.
The Israeli defense establishment will likely be forced to act soon; only time will tell whether that leads to a limited conflict or the first full-out war in Israel in years.
