The attempts to avoid a war between Israel and Hezbollah continue to make news. The interesting thing is that all the statements call upon the other side to simply surrender, Take yesterday’s quotation from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Israel won’t stop until all objectives are achieved. That means release of all hostages, removal of Hamas from control of Gaza, and ensuring that Hamas will never again be able to attack (or threaten) Israel. When that is achieved, Israel will pull all forces out of Gaza (but no promise not to go back in if Hamas, or any other terrorist group, becomes a threat). The Hezbollah second in command made a speech in which he emphasized that his organization did not want a wider war. He promised that once Israel left Gaza Hezbollah would stop shooting. (Of course, an immediate cease-fire means that Israel will not have completed any of its objectives). US President Biden said that if Israel attacks Iran, the US won’t come to the rescue. The implications can be read in more than one way. It doesn’t mean that the US will sit back if Iran attacks first. It also doesn’t mean the US will assist against Hezbollah (or maybe not). There’s a lot of ambiguity (or wriggle room) in these statements. Everyone seem to be trying to avoid a wider war, but without appearing to surrender or yield om almost anything.
Just to make the situation a bit clearer, the Hezbollah position has ALWAYS been that they were shooting rockets into Israel (a direct act of war) only to support Hamas in defense of Gaza. This claim is a bit hard to sustain when you look at when Hezbollah started shooting, as well as fact that the very act of shooting (whether at IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians) can hardly be called simply a way of pressuring Israel to accept Hamas conditions.
Bottom line, in my view, is that both Hamas and Hezbollah obviously violated international law and are looking for a way to emerge from the current conflict without any penalty for doing so and with some kind of settlement that they can spin as a victory to their followers in the Arab world.
Wetherhorn 