The US has allowed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow

Washington claims it knew nothing of the unprecedented pager-bombing attack, but its unconditional support enabled it

On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were primarily being used in a civilian capacity, injuring upwards of 4,000 people. Although the details are still being ironed out, this attack will now force Hezbollah to make major decisions in retaliation.

Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially adopted a new war goal of returning their displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out throughout Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has now expanded in the eyes of the Israeli political and military leadership to include Lebanon. However, there are question marks surrounding how such an escalation will take shape.

The US role

Commenting on the issue to reporters, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information.” He then even went as far as suggesting that the US government was gathering information just as journalists around the world are. 

While this was Washington distancing itself from the incident, it is almost comical for an American official to inform the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally on the incident. Taking this at face value, it is an embarrassing admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack which could lead to a regional war.

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Even if we are to assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that American bipartisan support for Israel throughout the course of its war on Gaza has not buckled under immense international condemnation is telling. Every single organ of the United Nations has been ringing the alarm bells, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the United Kingdom has decided to cancel 30 of some 350 weapons-licensing contracts over violations of international law.

While the US has continually stated that it seeks to de-escalate tensions and that it disapproves of an Israel-Lebanon war, at best it is doing nothing to stop it. If the US government were truly so out of the loop with Israel’s escalatory steps and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come at the end of July.

When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, then only hours later assassinated the leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanniyeh, in Tehran, this would have been the time when the Americans put pressure on the Israelis to stop. Instead, the US government decided to do the very opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session called to discuss the issue, they condemned Iran. On top of this, just under two weeks later, the US decided to approve a $20-billion weapons package for Israel.

Israeli terrorism 

There can be no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was done using terrorist tactics and its intended goals are important to analyze. While all the precise details remain hidden as to how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to render a judgment.

Firstly, the fact that this occurred across Lebanon and its victims were not just confined to those in the rank-and-file of Hezbollah has now left a lingering feeling of anxiety among the general public. The question cannot help but be posed: If the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also detonate phones, laptops and other devices, and how many other plots of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also impacts Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach in the group’s security on one level or another, which directly caused a temporary issue with the means of communication used by the group’s military personnel.

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According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence operatives managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, Mossad assassinated a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash, by planting explosive material inside his phone and detonating it remotely. In the 1980s the Israelis even operated a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) to carry out acts of terrorism while posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the US former ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.  

If this action was carried out as a means of impacting Hezbollah’s communications, prior to Israel launching a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would on some level degrade the capabilities of the group and force them to find alternative means of issuing orders to certain cadres. Yet, this is not what happened, they gave the Lebanese group the time to recover from this blow and so it must be seen within a different context, one of point scoring.

It now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a tough position. The group must mount some kind of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has made clear that, while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a support front for the Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza. 

Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military facilities, primarily targeting surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also striking army personnel too. On top of this, the Lebanese armed group has also been targeting specific populated areas that are located along the border region, with rocket barrages, forcing around 100,000 Israelis to flee. 

On the other hand, roughly 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes in southern Lebanon due to Israeli bombing attacks that have been much more devastating on the nation’s civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah’s has been on Israel’s. In fact, while Hezbollah attacks have only resulted in a handful of Israeli civilian deaths, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. This being said, there can be no denying the success of Hezbollah’s operations in conducting a war of attrition that is burdening Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.

What comes next

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Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative goal is to drag the group into opening up a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the collective West and know that the conflict will result in a stalemate at best.

If Hezbollah does not mount a considerable defensive counter operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations throughout Lebanon. While, on the other hand, if the Hezbollah response is too severe, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war that he has been threatening to wage for months now. 

This moment requires Hezbollah to step up and take risks militarily, at a time when they now have a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self defense. It is clear that the strategy of the Lebanese group has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, which is why it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Unfortunately, due to the US providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer looking at a war which is isolated to Gaza. Unless there is a ceasefire deal signed with Hamas soon, it appears inevitable that we are heading towards a Lebanon-Israel war that will drag in the entire region.