Hezbollah's many mistakes
Uri Dromi International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2006
JERUSALEM Mideast II
In order to be a political dove, one needs to be a military hawk. In other words, Israel will never be able to make peace with enemies like Hezbollah if they can harass the Jewish state at will and get away with it.
But has Israel really beaten Hezbollah enough to make it think twice before it tries again? I think the answer is yes.
Obviously, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is still around, presumably gaining admiration in Lebanon and in some quarters of the Arab world for standing up to Israel. But he now has plenty of time to ponder how badly he blundered.
Nasrallah's concept of deterring Israel with his arsenal of rockets failed miserably. The Israeli rear remained resilient after 4,000 Katyushas were launched at the north of Israel, and the Israeli government and army had the willpower to strike back, even when Nasrallah used the Lebanese as a human shield. Contrary to his bravado, his organization suffered a heavy blow, with a quarter of his fighters killed and his infrastructure badly damaged.
Nasrallah's claim to be the savior of the Shiites in Lebanon was shattered. In recent years he had shifted his focus away from fighting Israel and toward empowering the Shiite community, which has for decades been discriminated against and underrepresented in the Lebanese political system. He had managed to build an impressive system of social services and education, parallel to the state's system. Yet because of his rash provocation, many of his accomplishments are now heaps of rubble. His lieutenants hasten to shower Iranian petro-dollars on the Shiites whose houses were demolished, but it remains to be seen whether these people will continue to back him.
Another pillar of Nasrallah's strategy, that of Lebanon's lack of state accountability, also collapsed. In the 1970s and 1980s, Yasser Arafat used the weakness of the Lebanese government to build a Palestinian mini-state in Lebanon. This was ended by Ariel Sharon in 1982. Nasrallah tried the same approach, but Lebanon today is different.
Only a year ago, in the Cedar Revolution, the Lebanese kicked out the Syrians, and today - thanks to Nasrallah - they are sending the state's troops down south, together with an augmented UN force. Gone are the good old days of Beirut's impotence. So much so that the Lebanese defense minister threatened that if a Hezbollah militant launched a missile at Israel, he would be harshly punished as an "agent of Israel" because such an irresponsible act would surely trigger an Israeli reprisal.
In the Arab world, Nasrallah's stock has also dropped. His pretension to be a leader both of Shiites and of Sunnis has been ridiculed. Sheik Safar al- Hawali, a top Saudi Sunni cleric, said in a religious edict that Hezbollah, which translates as "the party of God," was actually "the party of the devil."
As for the leaders of the pro-West Arab states, they have expressed their dismay at the destabilizing fiasco initiated by Nasrallah, and chose not to invite Syria's foreign minister, a supporter of Nasrallah's, to their recent meeting in Cairo.
Finally, with his reckless gamble Nasrallah has left Israelis very angry and determined to settle unfinished business. The war exposed a lot of flaws in the Israeli military and civilian systems, but these will be vigorously examined and fixed. Nasrallah and his like, who have no idea how democracies function, may mistake the present turmoil in Israel for weakness. They are in for yet another surprise.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, during a tour of southern Lebanon, made a surprising statement: If Israel plays it smart, he said, we can turn this tragedy into an opportunity for peace. Sounds far-fetched? Stranger things have happened in the Middle East.
Come to think of it, for Israel, peace with Lebanon is far more feasible than peace with Syria or with the Palestinians. There is no meaningful territorial issue at stake, and there is no zero-sum game between the two states, but rather the opposite: Both Lebanon and Israel would gain immensely from peace. Just think of joint investments, tourism and more.
Am I getting carried away here? Maybe. But if it happens, it will be Nasrallah's worst nightmare. And if he lives to see it, he will only have himself to blame.
Uri Dromi is the director of international outreach at the Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem.
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