What the conflict between Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran is really about

To understand why and how Israel’s devastating blow to Hezbollah It is a global threat to Iran, Russia, North Korea and even Chinait must be placed in the context of the wider struggle that has replaced the Cold War as the framework of contemporary international relations.

After the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, I declared that we are no longer in the Cold War, nor in the post-Cold War era. we were in the post-Cold War era: a fight between an ad hoc “coalition of inclusion” – decent countries, not all of them democracies, who see their better future guaranteed by a US-led alliance pushing the world towards peace and stability – and a US-led “peace coalition” pushing the world towards peace and stability in the face of a “coalition of resistance” led by Russia, Iran and North Korea: brutal and authoritarian regimes who use their opposition to a world of inclusion led by the United States to justify the militarization of their societies and maintain a tight grip on power.

China straddles the two camps, as its economy depends on an inclusive coalition approach, while the government leadership shares many of the resistance coalition’s authoritarian instincts and interests.

The wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon must be seen in the context of this global struggle. Ukraine sought to join the world of inclusion in Europe—trying to break free from the Russian orbit and join the European Union—and Israel and Saudi Arabia sought to expand the world of inclusion in the Middle East by normalizing their relations.

Russia tried to prevent Ukraine from entering the West (EU and NATO) and Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah tried to prevent Israel from entering the East (ties with Saudi Arabia). Because if Ukraine joined the EU, the integration vision of a “whole and free” Europe would be almost complete and the kleptocracy Vladimir Putin almost completely isolated in Russia.

And if Israel were allowed to normalize its relations with Saudi Arabia, it would not only greatly expand the coalition of inclusion in the region—a coalition already expanded by the Abraham Accords, which forged ties between Israel and other Arab nations—but but Iran would be almost completely isolated and their ruthless proxies from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq, all of whom have led their countries to become failed states.

Indeed, it is difficult to overestimate the extent to which Hezbollah and its leaders, Hassan Nasrallahkilled in an Israeli attack on Friday, were hated in Lebanon and in many parts of the Sunni Arab and Christian world for the way they hijacked Lebanon and turned it into a base for Iranian imperialism.

At the weekend I spoke with Orit Perlovwhich monitors Arab social networks for Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. He described an avalanche of posts on social media from across Lebanon and the Arab world celebrating the demise of Hezbollah and urging the Lebanese government to declare a unilateral ceasefire so that the Lebanese army can wrest control of southern Lebanon from Hezbollah and bring peace to the border. The Lebanese do not want Beirut to be destroyed like Gaza, and indeed fear a return to civil war, Perlov explained to me. Nasrallah has already dragged the Lebanese into a war with Israel that they never wanted but that Iran ordered.

This adds to the deep anger that Hezbollah has joined forces with the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad crush the democratic uprising in this country. It’s literally like the Wicked Witch from “The Wizard of Oz” died and now everyone is thanking Dorothy (ie Israel).

But much diplomatic work remains to be done to turn the end of Nasrallah into a sustainably better future for Lebanese, Israelis and Palestinians.

The Biden-Harris administration is building a network of alliances to give strategic weight to an ad hoc coalition of inclusion: from Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Australia in the Far East to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, passing through India and the EU and NATO. The cornerstone of the entire project was a proposal from President Joe Biden’s team to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabiawhich the Saudis are willing to do, provided Israel agrees to open negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank on a two-state solution.

And here comes the problem.

Pay close attention to the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech, Benjamin Netanyahuon Friday before the UN General Assembly. He understands very well the struggle between the “resistance” and the “inclusive” coalition I’m talking about. In fact, it was the central theme of his speech at the UN.

Because? During his speech, Netanyahu showed two maps, one titled “Blessing” and the other “Curse”. “The Curse” showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, “Blessings,” showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan in green, with a two-way red arrow running through them as a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia to the world of inclusion. in Europe.

But if you look closely at Netanyahu’s “Curse” map, Israel emerges, but without borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed, the goal of this Israeli government).

And therein lies the problem. The story Netanyahu wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to a world of inclusion that stretches from Europe to the Middle East to the Asia Pacific.

I don’t agree. The cornerstone of this entire alliance is Saudi-Israeli normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.

If Israel were to move forward now and open a two-state, two-nation dialogue with a reformed Palestinian Authority that has already accepted the Oslo Peace Accords, it would be a diplomatic coup d’état to accompany and consolidate a military coup d’état. that Israel just attacked Hezbollah and Hamas.

It would completely isolate the “resistance” forces in the region and remove their false shield of being defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would make Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia and even China nervous.

But to do so, Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took by killing the leadership of Hezbollah aka “The Party of God.”

Netanyahu would have to break with Israel’s “God’s Party,” a coalition of far-right Jewish supremacist settlers and messianists who want Israel to permanently control the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, without any intervening border lines, like Netanyahu’s UN map. These parties keep Netanyahu in power, so he would have to replace them with centrist Israeli parties that I know would work with him on such a measure.

So here’s the big challenge of the day: the struggle between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance lies in many things, but none more so – today – than Netanyahu’s will to continue his coup against the “Party of God” in Lebanon has dealt a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Israel .

© The New York Times 2024.