Celebrations in Israel at the elimination of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader who masterminded October 7, 2023, is an expression of relief by some Israelis. Does Sinwar’s death mean victory for Israel? The 100 or so Israeli hostages are still in Hamas hands. By non Israeli accounts, Hamas’s recruitment drive is in full swing for “the long war”. Does Israel have the stamina for that war?
Bombing and destroying missions are easy because replenishments for such warfare are readily available with the “Military Industrial complex” in the US. The priceless asset for victory are foot soldiers and equipment for ground invasion. These are in short supply ever since the US became averse to setting boots on the ground.
The lesson Israel and their patrons, the Americans, must learn is this: aerial boom-boom-boom is gripping TV. It is good for destroying nations but it is useless in fighting nationalism – in Gaza or in Lebanon.
The death of Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, likewise, has further fueled resistance in Southern Lebanon. Has the IDF been able to break through the Hezbullah resistance on the ground? In fact by Lebanese accounts, Israel is having to ferry more dead and wounded Israeli soldiers than they had ever bargained for.
It just so happens that the terrain Israeli ground troops must break through to enter Lebanon is contiguous with the 120 km Blue Line which the United Nations Interim Force or UNIFIL monitors.
Let me share with you my experience of the Blue Line when in 2002 an Indian, Maj. Gen. Lalit Mohan Tiwari was the Force Commander of 10,000 strong UNIFIL. An additional advantage to me as an Indian journalist and my camera crew was the fact that a 900-strong Indian battalion – INDBATT, with its own chain of command operated under UNIFIL.
UNIFIL headquarters were in the town of Naqoura, in the 1,060 sq kms area the force commanded between the Blue Line a sort of border between Israel and Lebanon and Litani river. Tiwari’s residence was in Haifa, Israeli third largest city. He commuted daily between Naqoura and Haifa.
Even though the headquarters were in Southern Lebanon, the Force Commander’s accommodation in Haifa would appear to have given the Israelis a sense of control then. The situation today would be different. Until recently the Force Commander was Irish, a nation singularly critical of the genocide in Gaza.
The assumption that all the area under UNIFIL is only Shia is wrong. Yes, most of the area is Shia and possibly Hezbullah but there are several villages supervised by Christian Mayors. INDBATT was in a village under a Mayor who gave us a lecture one evening on how his village was known in history as the place where the world’s best arrack was brewed. A Shia Muslim village would not boast of its arrack. It was a Christian village. The over 40 countries represented in UNIFIL manned the 50 posts scattered around. Fierce fighting is obviously causing the IDF to look for “soft” points through which to make the penetration. Today the UNIFIL cannot just be wished away simply because Israel finds it inconvenient. The Sole Super Power moment is over.
Tiwari had a plausible manner with the Israeli as well as the Hezbullah side. In fact he even advanced my case to meet the Hezbullah supremo, Hassan Nasrallah. The interview did not take place but Tiwari did introduce me to a Hezbullah official who said “Let me try.”
What happened was a cloak and dagger sequence which began at a nondescript apartment block in Dahieh, much in the news recently. A smart young man with a trimmed beard led me onto yet another large car. He apologized that our camera team was not being allowed to accompany me. I was finally led into a basement divided by a large curtain and invited to sit in one of two sofas arranged quite typically for an interview.
Finally a kindly looking man, grey beard, a brown gown and a white turban seated himself opposite me. It was not Nasrallah but his long time Deputy, Naeem Qasim.
History of the region had begun to change dramatically after the Shah of Iran, a western bastion, fell in 1979. The consolidation of the Ayatullahs in Tehran was only one of the reasons for Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon to march into Lebanon in 1982 which, in turn, spurred Hezbullah’s growth.
This was the backdrop against which Syria and Iran were able to work together during the dramatic 17 days in 1985 when militants (no one knew who) forced a TWA flight from Athens to Rome to land in Beirut. To negotiate the release of 36 Western hostages, Speaker of Iran’s Majlis Hashemi Rafsanjani and Syria’s Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam pooled in their skills with the most influential Shia leader in Lebanon, Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Lebanese parliament. He played a key role in arranging for the release of the hostages.
Berri’s parliamentary politics was overtaken by Nasrallah’s military response to Israel’s aggression internally from within Lebanon and frequent attacks on Palestinian positions in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank –– all gave impetus to the resistance groups. By 2020, before his assassination by the US outside Baghdad airport, Iranian Commander Qasim Suleimani had already created firm linkages between various resistance groups. Those linkages are in plan today.
Quite remarkably, Israeli occupation of Lebanon and US occupation of Iraq caused the world to wake up to a new reality: Shias were an overwhelming majority in Iraq and the largest block in Lebanon. Houthis of Yemen are a variant of the mainstream Shias just as are the Alawis, the most powerful group in Syria.
A great irony lies at the heart of these Shia groups pooling in their resources to end Israeli genocide in Gaza: the Hamas in Gaza is true blue Sunni Ikhwan ul Muslimeen or the Muslim Brotherhood, a detail on which the western media buries its head in the sand.