Will Israel provoke a cataclysm?

The Israeli Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, met with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. In application of the agreements signed with them, he informed them that Israel would attack Lebanon on the evening of Saturday June 22.

News of this secret meeting spread rapidly across the web. Various official sources confirmed it. We also learned that an agreement had been reached between Tel Aviv and Riyadh. This information explains why Saudi Arabia, alongside the Western alliance, was involved in protecting Israel during the Iranian retaliation on April 14.

Throughout the days of Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd, chancelleries around the world were buzzing with contradictory information and statements. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can never be resolved by force of arms. "The peoples of the region and of the world cannot allow Lebanon to become a new Gaza (...) On both sides of the Blue Line, many lives have already been lost, tens of thousands of people have been displaced, and homes and buildings have been destroyed (...) Unexploded ordnance (...) poses an additional threat to the inhabitants of Israel and Lebanon, as well as to UN and humanitarian personnel (...) It is time for the parties to engage in a practical and pragmatic way in the diplomatic and political channels open to them", he told a press conference.

But Israel refuses to negotiate, and Hezbollah, refusing to abandon the Palestinians, has declared that it will not negotiate the demarcation of the Israeli-Lebanese border as long as the massacre in the Gaza Strip continues.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz replied to Guterres: "Israel cannot allow the terrorist organization Hezbollah to continue attacking its territory and its citizens, and we will soon take the necessary decisions. The free world must stand unconditionally by Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war, and Nasrallah’s threat against Cyprus is just the beginning. [1]. He announced that he would "soon take the necessary decisions" on the matter.

Meanwhile, the two sides stepped up their skirmishes.

Israel fired shells at Yaroun (Bint Jbeil caza) and Naqoura (Tyre). It also hit an area between Taybé and Deir Seriane (Marjeyoun) with white phosphorus weapons, setting off a fire in the area. In the evening, two consecutive attacks hit the locality of Khiam, in the same caza. Israeli aircraft also carried out an attack in the Kandouli district of Meiss el-Jabal.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for at least four attacks during the day. It targeted the maritime military site of Ras Naqoura (which corresponds to the Israeli site of Rosh Hanikra, opposite Naqoura) "using several suicide drones, in response to an Israeli strike in Deir Kifa (caza of Tyre)" on Thursday, which killed a Hezbollah fighter. He claimed "to have destroyed part of the site and wounded several people". It also launched another suicide drone attack on "an Israeli artillery base" in Za’oura, northern Israel, and carried out attacks on the Israeli sites of Rouaissat el-Qarn and Zebdine, located in the disputed Shebaa farms, as well as on Sammaka, in the Kfarchouba hills.

The United States, which since January 29 has been advising its citizens not to travel to Lebanon for fear of kidnappings [2], remained silent, while the Iranian mission to the UN tweeted: "Any imprudent decision by the Israeli occupation regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as that of the territories occupied in 1948. There can be no doubt that this war will have one big loser: the Zionist regime. The Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, has the capacity to defend itself and Lebanon - perhaps the moment has come for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime" [3].

Indeed, the balance of military power has shifted considerably since the Israeli-Lebanese war of 2006 [4]. Back then, Hezbollah had little experience. Today, on the contrary, it has lived through 12 years of war in Syria against jihadists armed by NATO and protected by the Israeli Air Force [5]. Today, it is said to have 2,500 Special Forces (Radwan), 20,000 highly-trained men, 30,000 reservists and 50,000 less-experienced fighters. It used to have short-range missiles. Today, it has 120,000 projectiles of all kinds, including 150,000 guided missiles, several thousand Zelzal ("earthquake"), with a range of over 120 kilometers, and several hundred Fateh-110 ("Liberation-110") guided missiles [6], with a range of 300 kilometers, and still tens of thousands of short-range missiles such as the Iranian-made Fajr-1 and the Chinese-made Type-107. This gigantic arsenal should enable it to saturate the Iron Dome and thus deprive Israel of its anti-aircraft defense [7]. If it fails to saturate it, Hezbollah has already demonstrated since December 2023 that it can destroy elements of the Iron Dome, rendering it inoperative. Above all, it has Sayyad-2 (Fighter-2) surface-to-air missiles and possibly Russian SA-22 Pantsir batteries [8], with the former of which, on May 20, it put an end to 76 years of Israeli air domination. While it is not certain that Herbollah can shoot down aircraft at high altitude, it is clear that it can destroy helicopters and aircraft at low altitude. In addition, Hezbollah has acquired all kinds of drones, including al-Hodhod ("Wavy Oyster"), which infiltrated Haifa and filmed the naval base and the RAFAEL (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd) arms factory, undetected by Israeli radars. And that’s not all: it now has Russian AT-14 Kornet and Iranian Toophan anti-tank missiles, as well as heavy armor such as Russian-made T-72 tanks. It also possesses ground-to-sea missiles, such as the Russian Yakhont.
There can be no doubt that if Hezbollah were to confront Israel alone, without US intervention, it would destroy the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a matter of days. We don’t know what would happen if the Pentagon came to the rescue of its historic ally.

In this perspective, opposition to the Israeli occupation, which is growing particularly among young American voters, is a challenge. To be re-elected, President Biden must abandon Israel. But abandonment means the disappearance of the Hebrew state. On the contrary, the entry of the US armada into the war would also provoke that of Iran. But since April 14, we have known that Teheran has hypersonic missiles, probably of Russian origin, which the West as a whole is incapable of intercepting [9].

How did Russia and the Axis of Resistance achieve such progress in weaponry and military science? Back in 2012, Israeli intelligence services claimed that Hezbollah had increased its bombing capacity 400-fold (four hundred times). At the time, they were only talking about quantity. Today, we need to be aware of quality too [10]. The reversal took place during the war against Syria. We described it at length, but the Atlanticist press denigrated our remarks. Indeed, it was essential to convince Western public opinion that Syria was a weak state, and that the Republic was going to be overthrown by a bunch of hooligans. Today, all Nato armies are in a sorry state, with the exception of France for its atomic capabilities and the United States, not only for its deterrent capabilities, but also for its pre-1991 conventional armaments. For 23 years, NATO has been transformed into an anti-jihadist coalition, certainly strong, but incapable of waging a "high-intensity war".

Planning to destroy the tarmacs of Israeli military airbases, Hezbollah anticipated the relocation of IDF aircraft to the British military bases of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus. Hassan Nasrallah thus warned Nicosia that, if it allowed Israeli military aircraft to land on its soil, it would become involved in the conflict and would have to bear the consequences.

Since the start of Operation Iron Sword (October 8, 2023), the IDF has been massacring people, while Hezbollah has taken great care to cause as few casualties as possible. While 37,000 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza, only around 15 Israeli soldiers were killed by the Lebanese Resistance, compared with over 300 Hezbollah fighters killed by the IDF. This contrasting picture gives the impression, at first glance, that Israel is always the stronger, whereas in reality it shows that Hezbollah is trying to fend off a war that it anticipates will be terrible.

In 1944, the fall of the Third Reich was brutal under the blows of the Red Army. In 2024, it could be just as brutal for Nato.

The balance of power has shifted. It is no longer reversible, either in the short or medium term. From this point of view, it is astonishing to see NATO behaving as if it were still the master of the world. This stubbornness will make its fall all the more painful.

The only alternative for the United States and Israel would be to encourage a military coup in Tel Aviv. Already, some 1,000 senior officers and non-commissioned officers have come together with this in mind, under the slogan: "Anyone who thinks there is a manoeuvre at Rafah is mistaken.

Anyone who knows there isn’t and says there is, is lying!" [11]. They are ready.

The White House’s decision is unknown, but the State Department’s top official on the subject, Andrew P. Miller, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, resigned on June 22. The State Department claims it was for personal reasons, but everyone knows that he was opposed to President Joe Biden’s Bear-Hug strategy [12]. He had implemented sanctions against Jewish supremacists.