To understand why the devastating blow of Israel to Hezbollah is such a transcendent threat to IIran, Russia, North Korea and even China, It must be put in the context of the broader struggle that has replaced the Cold War.
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After Hamas’s invasion of Israel last October 7, I argued that we were in the post-post Cold War: a fight between a “inclusion coalition” ad hoc—decent countries, not all democracies, that believe their future will be best achieved through an alliance led by United Statess that drives the world toward greater integration to confront global challenges, such as climate change—against a “resistance coalition”, headed by Russia, Iran and North Korea: regimes that use their opposition to the US-led world of inclusion to justify maintaining an iron grip on power.
China has had one foot in both camps: its economy depends on access to the inclusion coalition, while its leadership shares the interests of the resistance coalition.
Ukraine was trying to join the world of inclusion in Europe—seeking to free itself from Russia’s orbit and join the European Union—and Israel and Saudi Arabia They were trying to expand the world of inclusion by normalizing their relationships.
Russia tried to prevent Ukraine joins the West (EU and NATO), and Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah They tried to prevent Israel would join the East (ties with Saudi Arabia). If Ukraine joined the EU, Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy in Russia would be isolated from the rest of Europe. And if Israel were allowed to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, that would greatly expand the inclusion coalition in that region—a coalition expanded by the Abraham Accords that created ties between Israel and other Arab nations—and isolate Iran and its proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iran Shiite militias in Iraq.
Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli attack on September 27, were detested in Lebanon and in the Sunni and Christian Arab world for the way they turned Lebanon into a base for Iranian imperialism.
I spoke with Orit Perlov, who tracks Arab social media for Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. The Lebanese do not want Beirut to be destroyed like Gaza, and they really fear the return of civil war, Perlov explained to me. Nasrallah had dragged the Lebanese into a war with Israel that they never wanted, but that Iran ordered.
However, there remains much diplomatic work to be done to translate the end of Nasrallah into a sustainable and better future for the Lebanese, Israelis and Palestinians.
The Biden-Harris Administration has been building a network of alliances to give strategic weight to the ad hoc inclusion coalition—from Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Australia in the Far East, through India and on to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and then through the European Union and NATO. The cornerstone of the entire project was the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia proposed by the Biden team, something the Saudis are willing to do, as long as Israel agrees to start negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank on a settlement solution. two states.
But if one had paid attention to the Prime Minister’s speech Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu before the UN General Assembly on September 27, he understands very well the struggle between the “resistance” and “inclusion” coalitions. In fact, it was the crux of his speech before the UN.
During it, he raised two maps, one titled “The Blessing” and the other “The Curse.” “The Curse” showed Syria, Iraq and Iran in black as a blocking coalition between the Middle East and Europe. The second map, “The Blessing,” showed the Middle East with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan in green and a two-way red arrow running through them, like a bridge connecting the world of inclusion in Asia with the world of inclusion in Europe.
However, if you looked closely at the “Curse” map, it showed Israel, but no borders with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank (as if it had already been annexed—the goal of this Israeli Government).
The story Netanyahu wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to a world of inclusion that stretches from Europe, through the Middle East, and into the Asia-Pacific region.
However, the cornerstone of this alliance is a Saudi-Israeli normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel were to now move forward and open a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic coup de grace that would accompany and solidify the military coup de grace that Israel has just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.
It would totally isolate the “resistance” forces in the region and take away their false shield—those who are the defenders of the Palestinian cause. Nothing would shake Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia, and even China, more.
But to achieve this, Netanyahu would have to take a political risk even greater than the military risk he just took by killing the leaders of Hezbollah, also known as “the Party of God.”
Netanyahu would have to break with the Israeli “Party of God” — the coalition of far-right Jews who want Israel to control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Those parties keep him in power, so he would need to replace them with centrist Israeli parties, which I know would collaborate with him in such an action.
The fight between the world of inclusion and the world of resistance comes down to many things, but none more so today than Netanyahu’s willingness to follow up his blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon by dealing a similar political blow to the “Party of God” in Lebanon. of God” in Israel.
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