Daniel R. DePetris
This week, U.S., Israeli, Egyptian, and Qatari officials met in Cairo to continue discussions on how to hammer out a truce in Gaza. As one might expect, getting Israel and Hamas onboard a plan they can both accept is turning out to be the diplomatic equivalent of the world's most painful root-canal. President Joe Biden has told Americans that he's working around the clock to cement a deal that stops the fighting, frees the rest of the hostages in Hamas' custody, and increases humanitarian aid shipments into the coastal enclave.
The wrench in the gears is that everybody at the table has a different interpretation of a good deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has offered Hamas a six-week cessation of hostilities and more Palestinian prisoner releases in exchange for the remaining hostages, numbered at 136. Hamas is willing to release the hostages, but only on its terms. The Islamist group came back with a draft proposal of its own, a three-stage plan that would be implemented over a period of four and a half months and result in Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners (including senior militants), withdrawing from Gaza and ending the war permanently. Netanyahu strongly opposed Hamas' framework, calling it "delusional."
It's not a surprise that the talks in Egypt adjourned without significant movement. That's the bad news. The good news is that despite what looks like an imminent Israeli military offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the entire territory's population now resides, talks haven't broken down yet.
For the sake of Gaza's people, one can only hope the negotiations succeed. Success could also have a positive effect on another conflict more than 100 miles to the north, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah have been shooting at each other nearly every day for more than four months. On Feb. 14, Hezbollah fired rockets near the Israeli city of Safed, killing one. The Israelis responded immediately, launching airstrikes on multiple Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah's attack came days after Israel attempted to assassinate a Hezbollah commander as he was driving in his car.
Israeli politicians and military officers are increasingly impatient with the way things stand and have warned Hezbollah that Israel's northern border will be secured one way or another. "The dozens of aircraft currently operating in the skies of Lebanon are only part of our capabilities," Israeli Air Force Major General Tomer Bar said on Feb. 8, before the latest Israeli fatality. "Once the order is given, my intention is for these dozens to become hundreds of aircraft capable of executing all missions within minutes, from launching operations over the skies of Lebanon."
The subtext is clear: If Hezbollah won't move out of the border region on its own, then Israel will do it for them. The Biden administration would be making a mistake if they thought this was bluster. Having tens of thousands of Israeli civilians unable to return to their homes in the north is a politically unsustainable for Netanyahu, who continues to get slammed by his more right-wing ministers to stop dithering like a scared schoolboy. If it wasn't for President Biden, it's possible Netanyahu would have approved a large-scale offensive against Hezbollah already.
Such an operation would be disastrous for all involved. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Israel couldn't successfully manage a second war when most of the Israeli military establishment is tied up in Gaza. While there's no doubt Hezbollah would have be dealt a blow, there's also no doubt that millions of Israeli civilians would be forced into bomb shelters. At 150,000 missiles, Hezbollah's arsenal is far more sophisticated and of longer range than what the various Palestinian militant groups have at their disposal. Casualties in Israel would be high and the number of Lebanese killed in any full-scale war would likely be far worse.
An Israeli military vehicle transports troops near the border with the Gaza Strip on Feb. 12, 2024, amid ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGESIt's not like Israel hasn't gone into Lebanon before. The list of Israeli military operations in this small Arab-majority country is long. In 1978, the Israeli army swept into southern Lebanon to clear the area of Palestinian militants. In 1982, Israel conducted a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, which took Israeli troops all the way to Beirut, pushed Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat into exile, and ended with the establishment of a buffer zone in the south the IDF would go on to occupy for the next 18 years. Israel and Hezbollah have fought three wars since the early 1990s, with one of them, in 2006, ending in a draw.
The so-called Second Lebanon War is commonly thought of as an Israeli military failure. But it managed to establish an unwritten understanding between Israel and Hezbollah that persisted for the last 17 years. Deterrence has largely held, in large part because Israel and Hezbollah had no wish to re-live the experience.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel changed the calculus somewhat. Hezbollah has tried to balance its desire to support Hamas with the need to avoid another war with Israel. But this is a fine balance to tread, and it's based in large part on a party, Israel, that is undergoing a tremendous stress of its own.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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