With Gaza in ruins and Lebanon under siege, what defense is left for Israel’s actions? | Nesrine Malik

A common defense of Israel’s militancy, both within the Palestinian territories and in the broader region, is the claim that the country must act this way because it is surrounded by countries that seek to destroy it. Like many of the arguments that try to justify Israel’s disproportionate response on October 7, this one is not only incorrect, but a reversal of reality. The events of recent months and the attack on Lebanon in recent days show that Israel is a threat to its neighbors.

Last Monday alone, Israeli airstrikes killed 558 people in Lebanon – half the number who died in a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. The dead included 50 children, as well as humanitarian workers, first responders and government workers. . Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati says a million people could soon be displaced. Six apartment buildings in Beirut were razed to the ground in the attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. A Gaza in a microcosm is rapidly unfolding: thousands fleeing for safety, traumatized children, many casualties, an escalation in which there is no limit to the number of civilian casualties that can be sacrificed to achieve Israel’s objectives.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a war in which they demonstrate military capabilities and determination, exchanging missiles and strong rhetoric but never initiating open and unrestrained warfare. That changed with the pager and radio attacks, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, followed by airstrikes that escalated last week. Israel is looking forward not only to a show of decisive military might and an intimidation of Hezbollah, but also to the military victory that still eludes it in the Gaza quagmire. But there is a risk that Hezbollah and Iran, which have so far refrained from making a clear declaration of war, will be plunged into a face-saving conflict that neither they nor Israel can win outright.

And so here we are again: in a situation where civilians are in the middle and Israel justifies their deaths with a defense that – as always – builds on the fear of an ‘existential threat’. But in terms of real and serious threats to regional stability, Israel is the belligerent, out-of-control force, launching its recent campaign in Lebanon and the assassination of Nasrallah against the express wishes of the United States. The neighboring countries and the wider region are reluctant to become involved in any kind of war with Israel, let alone a war in which the country is destroyed. Israel’s response on October 7 ended the status quo – and if given the choice, its neighbors would certainly turn back the clock.

The Gaza war has lasted so long and expanded so much that we no longer see the smaller pictures – only the cliché of ‘rising tensions’ in the Middle East. We no longer see the others murdered on its edges, in the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. And we cannot see the contours of individual nations – their challenges and long histories of struggling with both Israel and Palestine, and their own conflicts. Lebanon, a country still scarred by civil war, is being traumatized again; Elsewhere, Israeli actions since October 7 have upended domestic politics and the regional political calibrations of the Arab world and the broader Middle East.

Rather than wishing for Israel’s destruction, many states in the region recently viewed the Israel-Palestine issue as resolved or at least sidelined, largely on Israel’s terms. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel more than forty years ago, leaving a conflict it knew it could not win. Jordan renounced its claim to the West Bank – occupied by Israel since 1967 despite repeated UN calls to withdraw from all Palestinian and other Arab territories – in 1988 and made peace in 1994. In the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain Morocco and Sudan all agreed to normalize relations with Israel and recognize its status as a sovereign nation, or to initiate that process. The normalization of relations and recognition by Saudi Arabia, a major victory for Israel, was underway before October 7. The consensus among analysts and insiders I spoke to is that the Gaza war is not seen by Saudi Arabia as a game changer in its relationship with Israel, and that if and when it ends, the Gulf state would still be keen on normalization .

The war in Gaza, and the broader Israeli-Palestinian issue, is also a test for Arab countries as they face their own challenges and manage domestic strife. It distracts and disrupts their relations with Western allies. Egypt is in the grip of an economic crisis and is under intense pressure to decide whether to admit Palestinian refugees, potentially facilitating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The UAE is already engaged in a war in Sudan, drawing intense heat and damaging international media attention. Saudi Arabia would love to leave all foreign policy behind, after overdosing on it during the time it projected its power through religious influence and wealth, and turn to building glittering megacities, buying up sports franchises and cleaning up his country. reputation. Qatar is a staunch ally of the US and hosts the largest US military facility in the Middle East. Jordan, a resource-poor country with a fragile economy, has hosted more than a million refugees from Syria in recent years and is almost entirely dependent on staggering amounts of U.S. aid to remain viable. Syria has remained peaceful despite attacks on its territory by Israel. Lebanon is home to what is effectively a Hezbollah state within a state, the latter being a state without a president and in permanent economic and political crisis.

And therefore also the threat to Israel. Why does it continue to portray itself as under siege in a region that has either long been domesticated or has too many problems of its own to worry about? If the cause of Israel’s belligerence can be exposed, and portrayed as a necessary response from a state surrounded by threats for the simple fact of its existence, then Israel’s own role can be obscured and exonerated.

The source of Israel’s security challenges, at the heart of the region’s “rising tensions,” is Israel’s siege of Gaza, widely condemned in the West Bank as apartheid, and the continued occupation of areas ordered by the UN Security Council . eviction resolutions, and the illegal expansion of settlements. As long as these conditions continue, the uprisings will continue by both legitimate and unlawful means, from the intifada to October 7. And that includes incidents of sharp confrontation, deadly for the Palestinians, with Israeli forces and settlers, triggering a cycle of reactions between states like Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah and the Houthis. There is indeed a profound threat, but it is the stability of the Middle East and the broader Arab world that is increasingly pushing Israel towards the brink.