Today's Situation

Nasrallah's gamble Friday, July 14, 2006

Some one million Israelis -- that's 20 percent of the population -- from Haifa north, were told to spend last night in 'defense spaces,' meaning shelters and 'sealed rooms' made of concrete, which have been required in all new construction since the 1991 Gulf War. This morning, the army gave the all clear for a couple of hours, for people to do their weekend shopping. Two Israelis have been killed and more than 100 have been hospitalized since the Hizbollah rocket fire began with the assault on the IDF patrol on Wednesday morning; some 50 Lebanese have been killed and hundreds wounded.

This morning, after four Lebanese aircraft took off from the Beirut International Airport, flying to Amman for safekeeping during the war, Israel bombed the runways there again, saying it was doing so to prevent the Hizbollah from removing the two Israeli soldiers who were captured inside Israel on Wednesday morning.

Lebanon has asked for a special emergency session of the UN Security Council, but meanwhile, Israeli government officials say they have carte blanch from the international community to take whatever action is necessary to end Hizbollah aggression. President Bush has said that Israel must defend itself but he also pointedly noted Israel should not do anything to undermine the fragile Lebanese government, and he pointed a finger at Syrian President Bashar Assad as the real culprit in the Hizbollah's moves against Israel. Bush did not note that the Lebanese government includes two Hizbollah ministers. Israel is saying that it is trying to smash Hizbollah -- but would be satisfied if the Lebanese government simply disarmed the Hizbollah and sent its army to southern Lebanon, asserting its sovereignty there.

The Israeli sense that they have at least another week in which to operate freely is not only because of American support, but because the Israeli public, at least so far, is backing the action against Hizbollah. The reasoning sounds very logical to Israeli ears -- the Lebanese government should take responsibility for its sovereign territory and not allow the Hizbollah and armed Iranian Revolutionary Guards create facts that endanger Lebanese interests. Olmert and Peretz are very aware that their handling of the crisis will either make them politically or break them. So far, they have moderated the Israeli military's demands for much harsher actions, but their rhetoric has been very strident.

Israel has dropped leaflets over Beirut warning residents to get out of buildings that house Hizbollah facilities, such as warehouses for rockets, offices, conference halls, and, say some reports, the families of top ranking Hizbollah officials, including Hassan Nasrallah, now viewed the worst of Israel's enemies -- except, perhaps Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Hizbollah is warning that if its Beirut offices, warehouses and other facilities are targeted, Hizbollah will unleash its rockets against Haifa, some 45 kilometers south of the Lebanese border. Iranian supplied rockets have the range to reach Haifa, as was evidenced last night by the lone rocket that hit the upper slope of the mountain overlooking Haifa Bay. The Haifa Bay is quite vulnerable, since it includes many industrial plants including those that use and manufacture toxic chemicals and gasses. The country's main petrochemical refineries are also in Haifa Bay.

Analysts in Israel are saying that the Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, totally miscalculated and that since Lebanese government is not taking action against the armed militia, Israel has an opportunity now to once and for all put an end to the Shiite group's domination of the south. There were four main miscalculations by Nasrallah, say analysts. These were that he expected Israel to fall into the routine patterns of behavior from the past, when Israeli soldiers were held captive by the Hizbollah -- seeking a prisoner exchange; secondly, he expected an Israeli ground invasion of south Lebanon, which would have created opportunities for his guerilla forces to bleed the IDF forces; thirdly, he made the equation between IDF attacks on Beirut and Hizbollah attacks on Haifa, but Hizbollah blinked first, giving Israel a 'free alibi' to strike at Beirut. The explanation now being given in Israel for the Hizbollah rocket attack on Haifa and Hizbollah's denial that it was responsible, is that Israeli operations have succeeded in disrupting communications between Hizbollah forces still in the south and the command and control headquarters in Beirut.

Finally, a key card for Nasrallah was supposed to be Arab backing for his moves against Israel. But not only is the Lebanese government divided, with Christian, Sunni and Druze politicians all angry about Hizbollah's actions ending up with billions in damage to infrastructure and lost revenues from tourists, but Saudi Arabia has reportedly issued a statement that essentially says Hizbollah made the bed, now it must sleep in it.

A major question, still unanswered, is whether Israel will target Syria at any stage of its campaign. For years, Israel has been complaining to the international community about Syria harboring terrorists. Hizbollah's weapons arrive from Iran through Syria, or are delivered directly by Syria to it. President Assad, who only a few months ago seemed to be tottering in his seat as a result of the international inquiry into the assassination of Rafik Hariri, meanwhile has been quite blase about the international pressure on him to expel Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbollah commanders from Damascus. Israeli officials such as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have said Israel does not want to open a third front. Perhaps. But if it succeeds at smashing Hizbollah, as it has vowed to do, Israel might use the momentum to strike at Assad. Meanwhile, the Syrian ambassador in London has told the BBC that Hizbollah should cease its rocket attacks on Israel, and that Syria wants to ease tensions, not wanting anything to do with the conflict.

In another development, there was a report in the Arab press that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israeli Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin the day before the crisis in the north erupted, apparently to discuss ways to resolve the crisis in Gaza. There has been no confirmation of the report from Israeli sources. Israeli ground forces have left almost all the positions they took up in Gaza, but the shelling of areas used by Qassam rocket launching crews continues. Nonetheless, at least five Qassams landed in the western Negev this morning.

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