Recent rocket fire at Israel shows Hezbollah still committed to resistance

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In July a diplomatic warning siren sounded that should have put the country on alert to sustain a blow. Rear Adm. Vadim Kulit, the deputy head of the Russian army’s Reconciliation Center for Syria, told a journalist that it was Russian planes that had intercepted seven or eight Israeli missiles that had been fired at Hezbollah and pro-Iranian targets in Syria a few days before. Kulit even described the type of missiles and their capabilities. It isn’t clear how accurate Kulit’s report was, but the silence from Moscow indicates at the very least that the admiral wasn’t talking off the top of his head.

At around the same time, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat quoted sources saying that, after the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden in June, Washington conveyed the message to Moscow that it was not pleased by Israel’s attacks on Syria. The report didn’t get any independent confirmation either, but like the previous one, it was not denied.

Israeli sources said that they are not aware of any such dialogue between Russia and the United States. Ostensibly there is no connection between the public hints that Russian approval for Israel to operate freely in Syria is expiring and the recent events in Lebanon, but Russia’s dissatisfaction should not be underestimated.

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The chain of causality that generated the recent confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah might have yielded a similar result even without the regional context. It was the familiar sequence: Fire on Israel by Palestinian factions or independent activists from Lebanon provoked an Israeli retaliation, which provoked Hezbollah’s response and the Israeli counter-reaction.

Hezbollah could have nipped this in the bud, as it has in the past when Palestinian factions fired on Israel. A renunciation or denial, or at least a lack of response, would have stopped the cycle and the event would have ended before it became a game of pride that raised the question whether the balance of deterrence between Israel and Hezbollah had collapsed.

There are two possible explanations for why Hezbollah deviated from the rules of the game that have served it and Israel well since the end of the Second Lebanon War. According to the first, Hezbollah was acting on orders from Iran, which wanted to flex its muscles on every front shortly after President Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated, to make it clear that its policy remains the same and that it distinguishes between the yet-to-be-renewed nuclear talks and its ongoing military operations to defend its interests in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. A sub-chapter of this explanation, to the extent that it’s true, could be the desire of Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani to boost his image and wavering status, an aspiration that provoked the July 30 attack on the ship Mercer Street in the Persian Gulf and spurred Hezbollah’s response.

But this contradicts another interpretation, which is that Iran is seeking to calm things down so as not to give the United States and Western countries a reason to attack it or impose additional sanctions. Reports and commentary in Western media outlets that rely on intelligence sources say that the Shi’ite militias in Iraq, which carry out most of the attacks against American targets in Iraq and the Gulf, don’t obey Qaani, who had asked them to lower their profile, and act on their own. According to this interpretation, Tehran is losing control of these militias just when it’s conducting a political campaign to help its people win in the next Iraqi elections expected to take place in October.

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Is Hezbollah, which has become the guide and adviser to some of these militias, also trying to break free from the restrictions Iran imposes on it and conduct its wars more independently? Was its retaliation against Israel not just aimed at testing the new government in Jerusalem but also the one in Iran? If the answer is yes, then the theory that Iran is behind the attack from Lebanon needs more concrete proof.

The second common explanation for Hezbollah’s behavior is that it’s taking advantage of the economic and political crisis that has plagued Lebanon for the past two years, to demonstrate its power, to remind those who may have forgotten who the country’s “true defender” is, and most especially to prevent a situation in which any new government that is formed, and any Western country that will support it, would even think of separating the organization from the bosom of power or demand that it disarm.

But this explanation is somewhat absurd. Najib Mikati, the billionaire appointed by President Michel Aoun to form a government, is very close to Hezbollah, and does not intend – nor would he be able – to form one without its representatives.

Israeli self-propelled howitzers fire towards Lebanon from near Kiryat Shmona following rocket fire from the Lebanese side of the border, on August 6, 2021.Jalaa Marey/AFP

Neither does Hezbollah need any show of force to prove its military strength relative to that of the Lebanese army. Moreover, Israel now has no state address in Lebanon to blame or hold accountable. Its appeal to the Security Council will have no practical significance other than to extract a condemnation. As a result, Hezbollah is Israel’s only “partner” and its missiles were meant to remind Jerusalem of this.

But Hezbollah does occasionally have to prove its commitment to the idea of resistance, not only in speeches and declarations, but also in deeds. This message was not limited to the Lebanese arena. It was sent to Hamas, to Shi’ite militias, to Syria, and anyone the organization considers loyal to the idea of resistance. Acts of resistance have only one fundamental condition: they must not harm the status of the organization in Lebanon or cause it PR damage, as happened in the Second Lebanon War.

The recent confrontation with Israel meets these conditions and gave Hezbollah some ideological points without any downside. Although Hezbollah could not have known for sure whether or not Israel would launch an all-out war against Lebanon following the firings, it took a calculated and rational risk. Israel is now busy with the coronavirus. Its government is not yet firmly on its feet. It is concerned about the Iranian nuclear threat and does not want to open another front.

To this the organization can add Washington’s indifference toward the conflicts in the Middle East and Biden’s unwillingness to intervene, to the point that it won’t even respond militarily to an Iranian attack on shipping in the Gulf. Hezbollah can also rely on what it interprets as a chill in Russian-Israeli relations and Russia’s dissatisfaction with the attacks on Syria, and also on the dilemma facing the Arab states, especially the Gulf states that have signed peace agreements with Israel.

These countries are not Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s friends, far from it, but they are now mobilizing to help Lebanon and are trying to bring Syria back into the Arab fold. These moves are inconsistent with a broad Israeli attack in Lebanon, and Hezbollah can count on that as well.

Although this constellation of considerations by Hezbollah could provoke more localized conflicts with Israel, it serves, in the meantime, as a defensive wall against an all-out war.