‘Catastrophic’: Top U.S. official warns ‘the other side cannot be annihilated’ in an Israel-Hezbollah war

JERUSALEM – A top U.S. official warned Monday that a full-blown war between Israel and Iran’s Shia Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, would have devastating implications for the region, possibly leading to tens of thousands of deaths on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.

Speaking at the Middle East America Dialogue (MEAD) summit in Washington, D.C., the official said there could be “catastrophic and unforeseen consequences,” while also highlighting the likely end of the war via a diplomatic solution, which on balance would not look significantly different from the current situation.

While cautioning against all-out war, the official – who thought it could be staved off – freely admitted the current situation in northern Israel was intolerable, with Hezbollah maintaining its constant rate of fire of several – and in some cases tens of missiles and drones – per day being fired over the border.

“We cannot return to the status quo of Oct. 6,” he said. “A ceasefire with Lebanon alone is not enough, because Hezbollah will return to the border.”

“There is an idea of ​​’Let’s go to war and then we will destroy all the missiles Hezbollah has and everything will be fine.’ It’s not that simple. There is no magic solution. The other side cannot be annihilated. At the end of the war, Israel may pay a heavy price and not achieve its goals,” the official was quoted by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid as saying.

He added there would be a need for security arrangements at the border itself, as well as additional components to ensure enforcement and implementation, although nothing like U.N. Resolution 1701, adopted at the conclusion of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, which is supposed to rely on blue helmet peacekeepers preventing Hezbollah from moving south of the Litani River.

It is a mission in which the U.N. has singularly failed, although the official said both Israel and Hezbollah were in contravention of the resolution. It was unclear from the reporting who exactly would be providing enforcement and implementation to keep the two sides apart.

The MEAD summit also hosted significant diplomatic and military figures, such as former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel Thomas Nides and David Friedman, who recently published his most recent book, “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

On Sunday, Israel’s former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who until June was also a member of the war cabinet, advanced his contention about the country’s need to shift its focus away from Gaza and onto the northern arena. He admitted a sense of urgency, arguing “we are late on this,” adding that the lack of a hostage deal with Hamas might make the outbreak of a war with Hezbollah imminent.

The timing of the U.S. official’s warning is both interesting and instructive in that it seems to not really offer a solution to the problem, while also attempting to box Israel into a corner. Nothing of what was said was new or original, Israeli leaders, lawmakers, and commentators – as well as the regular person on the street – is acutely aware of what an all-out war with Hezbollah might look like. That intimate knowledge is one of the reasons Israel did not attack Lebanon on Oct. 8 rather than Hamasistan in Gaza.

Israelis of all political stripes are well aware the nexus of the so-called Israel-Palestine conflict has morphed into the opening skirmishes of an Israel-Iran war, and its leaders must grapple with that reality, as well as the serious and sobering prospect of having a much more distant U.S. administration – especially if Vice President Kamala Harris is victorious in November’s presidential election.

The on-stage interview was also held in the shadow of one of Israel’s most significant attacks on Syria in years. Indeed, a Ynet opinion piece argued the strikes should be viewed as being in tandem with preparations for a major campaign in Lebanon. Israel’s massive aerial bombardment of the “Center for Scientific Research,” more commonly assumed to be a main source of Syria’s high-tech weapons industry, was thought to be an opening salvo to deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from too readily being able to supply Hezbollah and other Syrian-based proxies with precision-guided missiles with which to attack Israel.

Biden’s appeasement plan

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s special presidential coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security – more regularly known in the guise of a Middle East envoy – recently proposed a land-swap deal between Israel and Lebanon. Considering the amount of counter evidence – which includes that emanating from Israeli leaders – about the success of land for peace deals, it’s a wonder anyone would have the gall to even suggest this. Hochstein, it should be remembered, was also the official who pressured then-Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid to turn over recently-discovered gas fields to Hezbollah in 2022. These suggestions are merely appeasement by another name.

At the same conference, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued a second Trump term would have prevented Hamas and Iran from feeling emboldened to attack Israel. He added a Trump win in November would likely prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“We had a model that worked,” Pompeo, who has been rumored to be under consideration for a senior administration role should Trump win in November, said at the inaugural MEAD Summit in Washington, D.C., according to Jewish Insider.

“The Iranians would no more have done what they continue to do today, to hold American hostages and kill Americans in Gaza. They would no more have supported the nonsense of these knucklehead terrorists called Hamas. When we were united with Israel and had great partners throughout the entire Gulf region, they took us seriously, and so there’s no reason to expect they wouldn’t do so again.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah itself has not taken a break from sending ordnance into Israel – bringing its tally of rockets, missiles and drones fired since Oct. 8 to some 8,500, including 200 in the past week. On Monday, a suicide drone struck an apartment block in Nahariya, Israel’s most northerly city on its Mediterranean coast, and one which almost abuts the Lebanese border. There were no casualties, but the impact caused significant cosmetic damage.

O ataque do Hezbollah a um prédio na cidade costeira de Nahariya, norte de Israel, é um incidente sério. O drone que veio do Líbano alcançou uma área residencial e poderia ter feito muitas vítimas. Pretende mostrar que o perímetro de ataque dos terroristas do Líbano pode vir a… pic.twitter.com/bcBcgcEV2b

— Israel em Portugal (@IsraelinPT) September 10, 2024