Fighting over Lebanon

Pakistan is distracted by something the USA cannot control

Pakistan is preparing at its end for the coming US-Iran talks in Islamabad, due to begin on Saturday (today), but Israeli bombing of Lebanon continued on Thursday. This not only proved a distraction from the talks, but also was a violation of the ceasefire that had been agreed to. It also provided a focus on a conflict that had been pursued all through its massacre in Gaza, and it is difficult to avoid the impression that Israel gives its offensive against Lebanon as much importance as the offensive against Iran.

The big difference between Iran and Lebanon is that Israel has no borders with Iran, but does with Lebanon. Israel’s ambitions in Lebanon, as stated by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalal Smotrich, was to take Lebanese land to make Israel safer. This involves taking southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, land which Israel had occupied from 1982 to 2000, as part of a wider occupation which extended to Beirut. Israel wants to take this are permanently, shifting the border, in what would be the first Israeli occupation since its 1967 takeover of the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War. The occupation of Lebanese land is particularly dangerous, for it makes Israel an expansive power, and the Greater Israel project (according to which Israel absorbs West Bank and the Gaza Strip) becomes merely the first stage in a potentially limitless Israeli expansion. Israel is trying to be clever: it attacked Lebanon because Iran backs Hezbollah there, but it does not accept that the ceasefire with Iran should also apply to any of its proxies. Pakistan may find that Israeli aggression in Lebanon is the point where the ceasefire breaks down. The USA should notice that is is the point where it may well find that its interests do not coincide with Israel’s.

The reason is simple: Israel does not have to pay the bills, because it receives virtually un;imited financial support from the USA, and thus it is insulated from the Hormuz Strait closure, which brought the USA to negotiate, because of the oil shock which the Trump Administration could not tolerate because of the effect on the midterm elections. Iran  Thus the Israeli campaign in Lebanon assumes central importance with Iran threatening to withdraw from the talks. It is now to be seen whether the USA wants talks enough to rein in Israel.