“We continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might. We will not stop until we achieve all of our goals,” the Israeli prime minister said.
While the US is play-acting the role of unbiased mediator in both the Israel-Gaza and Israel-Lebanon wars, words cannot hide billions in aid and military actions in support of Israel. The world knows the US is complicit. But it is also a longstanding policy of the US government that both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon should–as officially designated terrorist organizations–be destroyed.
“Americans want to get rid of Hezbollah and Hamas even before [recent actions by] Israel. They're more eager to continue this war against Hezbollah,” explained veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier on Radio Sputnik’s Fault Lines, noting that US President Joe Biden once called the invasion of Rafah a “red line” that could not be crossed by Israel.
In May, Israel crossed Biden’s red line and invaded Rafah, reducing it to rubble by July. The US did not cut off aid or arms sales to Israel and, on Thursday, Israel announced it secured an additional $8.7 billion in aid from the US.
“And then who put pressure on Egypt to allow the presence of Israeli troops [at the Philadelphi Corridor] that violated the 1978 peace accord, the Camp David Accord, and the 2005 additional agreement?” asked Magnier. “It is the United States of America, not Israel… This is why we see the involvement of the Americans [down] to the bones.”
On Tuesday, Biden gave a speech at the UN, in which he described Hamas as “terrorists” and again accused them of “despicable acts of sexual violence” despite extensive reporting disproving the claim of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war on October 7.
“Together, we must deny oxygen to terrorists – to [Iran’s] terrorist proxies,” Biden added later, again confirming the US' unequivocal stance on the side of Israel.
“Listen to what Biden is saying,” instructed Magnier. “He said he is doing his best to stop the war in Lebanon. When Netanyahu said ‘no, thank you,’ do we think that Netanyahu had the courage to stand against the country that is supporting him?”
Despite the similarities in their beginnings: the mass bombing of civilian targets and irrational claims of militant strongholds in the unlikeliest of places, Israel will not find the war in Lebanon as manageable as Gaza.
“Hezbollah cannot hit [Israel] exactly with the same intensity because it doesn’t have an air force. The Israelis have an air force and they have hundreds of jets” that can hit Lebanon in shifts, 24 hours a day, explained Magnier.
However, Hezbollah does have extensive drone capabilities that can damage Israel’s infrastructure. Over the summer, Hezbollah released several batches of drone footage of critical Israeli military infrastructure, the Israeli port city Haifa and occupied Golan Heights.
“[Israel] considered the Palestinians as animals, they destroyed their capability, they destroyed the infrastructure, they cut water, electricity, food supply and medicine and they destroyed their university, their schools, everything. They can't do that with Lebanon because Lebanon, the resistance there, has the capability to damage the Israeli infrastructure,” Magnier continued. “There is not a balance, but there is more capability from Lebanon to inflict serious damage on Israel and turn Israel, in terms of infrastructure, to the Stone Age because if they destroy the electricity, the water and close all the harbors and the airports and bomb and destroy the gas and oil platform, what's going to happen to Israel?”
On Friday, the US credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service downgraded Israel’s credit for the second time this year. The drop lowered Israel’s credit rating two notches, from A2 to Baa1.
“In our view, the significant escalation in geopolitical risk also points to diminished quality of Israel’s institutions and governance which have not fully mitigated actions detrimental to the sovereign’s credit metrics,” the agency warned.
A lower credit rating from Moody’s will increase the price of loans, decrease investments, lower profits, and increase inflation for Israel. The problem will get exponentially worse if Hezbollah closes Israel’s remaining seaports and damages its infrastructure.
But the real challenge will come when Israel launches its ground war against Lebanon. The problem is twofold, according to Magnier. One, since Israel cannot carpet-bomb Lebanon as extensively as it did to Gaza, it will not be able to significantly diminish Hezbollah’s capabilities before invading as it did to Hamas before launching its ground campaign in Gaza. Two, Hezbollah’s ground and artillery forces are far more powerful than Hamas."
“Remember, in [the 2006 Lebanese-Israeli War] Hezbollah was 100 times weaker than it is today and Israel failed to achieve its objectives,” recalled Magnier. “Israeli tanks were caught in Radi Hezir and they were screaming for help and the Israelis were saying to the tank commander, according to his testimony, 'wait until we reach a ceasefire, we can't help you now. Hold on and find the shelter for you to hide.'”
Meaning, Netanyahu’s only choice is to draw the US into the war.
In 2006, then US President George W. Bush called Israel's war in Lebanon one of three “fronts of the global war on terror” and said responsibility for the war and its resulting suffering “lies with Hezbollah.”
In a news conference announcing a ceasefire in that conflict, Bush claimed Hezbollah would no longer be able to act as “a state within a state” and would be replaced in the south by the official Lebanese government’s forces. More than 18 years later, Hezbollah remains the dominant military force in Lebanon and is stronger than it has ever been.
“The United States never stopped supporting Israel and Israeli wars. If the Americans wanted to stop this war, they would cut the ammunition and money,” explained Magnier. “Now, there is no doubt that the Americans are full partners with Israel in every single bomb that falls on civilians, Palestinians or Lebanese and in every war they carry out.”