Israel-Hizbullah-Nasrallah—An Analysis

ANALYSIS, 30 Sep 2024

Helena Cobban - TRANSCEND Media Service

28 Sep 2024 – A couple of hours ago, Hizbullah confirmed that its leader of the past 32 years, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in the massive air-raid the Israeli military launched against the Southern Beirut suburbs yesterday. That air-raid and the many others the Israelis have launched against Lebanon over the past week have killed hundreds– or quite likely thousands– of Lebanese people, maimed and displaced many more, and destroyed swathes of the country’s vital infrastructure. Our deep condolences to all of them.

We can recall that the Israeli military’s long-established “Dahiyeh Doctrine”, which calls for pulverization of large portions of advanced urban infrastructure, was named after the assault it undertook against that same South Beirut “Dahiyeh” (“neighborhood”) in 2006.  Over the past year, Israel has practiced the Doctrine relentlessly against the cities of the Gaza Strip and their residents and has faced ZERO actions from Washington to restrain those genocidal acts. Indeed, Pres. Biden has continued to provide Israel with everything it needed to keep on. committing them. And now Israel has also taken them (back?) to Lebanon– and also to the West Bank.

The coming days and weeks will show where all this might lead– including for the 40,000 U.S. service-members deployed throughout West Asia (the “Middle East”.) A few things are worth bearing in mind, though:

1. The broad destruction that Israel has wrought in Lebanon is highly unlikely to force Hizbullah and its many allies to capitulate– just as Israel’s pulverizing of Gaza has not brought Hamas to its knees.
2. In 1992, Israel succeeded in killing Hizbullah’s previous leader. That did not bring Hizbullah to its knees. Indeed, it brought Hassan Nasrallah to the leadership spot. Over the years that followed 1992 he built new capabilities for the party and its militia, which in 2000 was finally able to force an ignominious end to the occupation of South Lebanon that Israel had maintained since 1982.
3. Hizbullah (like Hamas) has always paid great attention to training younger generations of cadres and fighters, in the clear knowledge that Israeli decapitation projects would be very likely.
4. The Israelis have declared no clear political goals in Lebanon except the need to secure the “living space” (lebensraum?) of their citizens in the north of Israel. If a Somalia-style chaos ensues in Lebanon, which is one possibility among many, that seems to be of no concern to them.
5. This crisis certainly affects the security of the numerous U.S. military and naval assets strung out throughout the region. Incidentally, it does so at a time when a vital piece of the US Navy’s operational logistics, the sole USN “oiler” resupply ship in the whole region, is suddenly out of action.

FYI: Back on Monday [23 Sep] I pulled together some of my own past writings on Hizbullah and the Lebanese Shiite community from which it arose, in this post on Globalities. The pieces linked to there are are from 1985, 2005, and 2006. That last one describes the last time Israel mounted an earlier major assault on Lebanon, back in 2006… and how it then took Hizbullah only 33 days to force Israel into a humiliating retreat.

And as the Israeli military continues to shift its forces toward the Lebanese border, it leaves behind in Gaza just enough forces to continue the slow, grinding genocide-by-starvation-and-disease of the Strip’s remaining population.

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Helena Cobban is a British-American writer and researcher on international relations, with special interests in the Middle East, the international system, and transitional justice. She is a non-resident Senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Center for International Policy. She is the co-author of Understanding Hamas.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 30 Sep 2024.

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