The current situation, he suggests, is largely the product of Israel’s actions as the latter seeks to establish control over the water resources of southern Lebanon.
“The expansion of this war, which is the Netanyahu right-wing Zionist political project that started in Gaza, expanded into the West Bank, consolidated in the occupied Golan Heights, is now making a renewed efforts to secure southern Lebanon's water resources, rich farmlands, and to eliminate one of the few organized military resistances in the region against more or less Israel operating with impunity,” Blumi claims.
According to him, he “would be personally surprised" if the Israeli Defense Forces "actually invaded and spends large amounts of time in southern Lebanon.”
That said, Blumi argues that Israel is well aware that it cannot prevail in such a campaign and thus “may try to induce the Americans and others to do the heavy lifting of actually delivering ground forces to evict the resistance that they would receive in southern Lebanon.”
The current situation at the Lebanese-Israeli border gave rise to speculations on social media that Hezbollah may be attempting to provoke Israel into invading Lebanon where an extensive, multi-layered defensive network would exact a heavy price on the attacking Israeli troops.
Blumi, however, insists that “Hezbollah is not in the business of inducing an invasion of southern Lebanon.”
“That's contrary to their long term interest and the interest of larger Lebanese society that supports Hezbollah,” he adds.
The scholar also speculates that the Israeli military leadership may be against any military invasion of southern Lebanon, wary of the potential repeat of Israel’s failed incursion of 2006.
“I can't foresee Israeli forces going independently and trying to occupy and eliminate Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. It may again be that there may be some kind of coalition that assists in this process,” Blumi says. “But my suggestion is that at least from my opinion, there will not be any invasion and occupation attempt to occupy southern Lebanon, as maybe some right-wing fanatical Zionist settlers would like. But that's not going to happen.”