July 24, 2024

Interviews

The Buffer Zone

An interview with Nicholas Noe

Since Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel on October 7, the question of deterrence has loomed over the region: who holds it, what does it consist of, and how will the balance of forces tilt or not tilt towards a widening regional war. 

No regional actor has raised the specter of a crumbling deterrence arrangement more sharply than Hezbollah. Almost as soon as Israel began its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the possibility of a “second front” war in Israel’s north has been in play: will Netanyahu push for escalation to sate a war-hungry populace and an extremist political coalition? Will Hezbollah push for escalation alongside other members of the Axis of Resistance? Are escalations of rhetoric, media interventions, and military operations a path towards war, or the continued management of mutual deterrence?

In the following interview, writer and lawyer Dylan Saba and Phenomenal World editor Jack Gross speak to Nicholas Noe about these developments, Hezbollah’s growth, and the possibility of “all-out” war between the IDF and Hezbollah. Nicholas Noe is a senior fellow at Refugees International, the director of the Foundation for Global Political Exchange, and the translation service Mideastwire.com. He is the author of numerous articles and commentaries on Lebanon and the region, and the editor of the 2007 book Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

An interview with Nicholas Noe

Jack gross: Despite talk about containing regional conflagration since October 7, there has been a very active conflict across the border, with many casualties, infrastructural and agricultural destruction, and significant depopulation on both sides. What has been happening in southern Lebanon and northern Israel since October?

nicholas noe: This isn’t an easy question to answer, given the points of view that are implicated: the Israelis and Lebanese on either side of the border, the residents of the nearly eighty-year-old Palestinian camps in Lebanon, especially the Rashidieh camp near Tyre, the residents of Beirut. The question of what is happening, who is being affected, how they are being affected, and what this conflict means to them is not so simple to answer.

In basic terms, a tit-for-tat exchange between Hezbollah and Israel has been underway since October 8. Reports estimate over 95,000 Lebanese have been displaced from their south, and 60,000 Israelis from their north. Israeli strikes have killed over 300 Lebanese, while Hezbollah strikes have killed thirty Israelis. Thousands of homes have been obliterated in southern Lebanon, and farmland has been destroyed by hundreds of white phosphorus attacks. Last month, the IDF announced that its plan for a full-scale attack in southern Lebanon had been approved.

But from a strategic military point of view, what we have is an unprecedented situation in the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict: for the first time, a group from the Arab side has been able to militarily assert what the Israeli side calls a “buffer zone.” This is a huge deal. Many things have transpired over the last nine months that some analysts predicted, but this situation is unprecedented and extremely significant. Things are in a very different place from five, ten, or twenty years ago—and this is a consequence of a transformation in the military balance of power. 

Dylan saba: Can you say more about the buffer zone, and why that’s a significant development?

NN: The fundamental development is that for the first time in, let’s say, contemporary Israeli history, their opponents have de facto created an area within what Israel considers its borders that cannot be inhabited by Israelis. This has never happened before, and it has a huge bearing on Israel’s desire or willingness to escalate with Hezbollah. 

Ds: Let’s back up a little bit. Who is Hezbollah, as a political and military force within Lebanon and in the region more broadly?

NN: Hezbollah is a Lebanese, Shia political party and military organization, that came into being during Israel’s war on Lebanon in 1982. It has decisively become a regional, international actor. It has done so by building its capacities, such that today a key ally of the main superpower in the world is unable to take decisive military action against Hezbollah because of how significantly they have changed the balance of power and the qualitative military edge.

Hezbollah is now a major force that has only grown in power over the last twenty years, and it has been able to do so, I would argue, because of the failure to address the underlying grievances and structural problems that have existed for many decades.

jg: Could you say more about that growth? How have political and economic factors in the region, Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, and its deepening relationship with Iran led to the growth of its military capabilities?

NN: Militarily, Hezbollah has proven itself to be very proficient in learning and building their capacities. They did it under duress in 2005, when the Syrian army was kicked out of Lebanon. They did it with their so-called ally Bashar al-Assad and the dictatorship in Syria in 2011 until the present. They have learnt and built their strength. And politically, there are no durable solutions on offer to the underlying grievances that make Hezbollah an effective actor—and the failure to produce those solutions, particularly in 1999 and 2000, is an origin point for the present. 

In February and March of 2000, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, gave two key interviews, as Hafez al-Assad was traveling to Geneva to broker a peace deal between Syria and Israel. That deal would have obligated Lebanon, because Syria had 30,000 troops and tens of thousands of secret police in Lebanon. Hezbollah was at the time a relatively weak actor.

In these interviews, Nasrallah said that, if Syria went for a peace deal, Hezbollah would continue to resist the Zionist program: they would protest this normalization, they would reject Israelis traveling to southern Lebanon. And a journalist from the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram provocatively asked him, “What will you do if there’s an Israeli flag on an Israeli embassy in downtown Beirut?” This was where the region seemed to be headed. Nasrallah’s reply was that Hezbollah would resist it, and they would organize conferences against it, but the subtext for the Al-Ahram reader was that they wouldn’t car bomb the Israeli embassy. The Syrians had the preponderance of power in 2000 in Lebanon whether Hezbollah liked it or not. 

He also made a second point, which was that Israel would not go down the peace path. He was right, of course. There wasn’t peace in 2000, the Syria track collapsed, and Camp David collapsed. 

In May 2000, the Israelis left Lebanon without a peace agreement under fire from Hezbollah, marking the first time an Arab force ejected Israelis from occupied territories. Hezbollah’s bet since then has been a belief that the Zionist Israeli project will collapse. That was the occasion of his infamous “spider’s web” speech, in which he said “Israel, which owns nuclear weapons and the strongest war aircraft in the region, is feebler than a spider’s web.” That was twenty-four years ago—before 9/11, before the US-led global war on terror, which had enormous effects on the region, before Obama and the promise of a new detente, before Daesh, before the Arab Spring. None of these events have changed that fundamental claim. He would often make statements challenging other leaders to pursue a peaceful track, which would put Hezbollah out of business. But unfortunately, as he was right to assert, that track seems unavailable.

Ds: What exactly are the underlying grievances? In what sense are they irresolvable? And if they are, was that a foregone conclusion since 2000, or have the events since October 7 set Hezbollah and Israel on a new course of confrontation? 

NN: Hezbollah bears a number of different interests. For example, they are certainly interested in the preservation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its power, even if that means a nuclear program in the future. These interests are related to their own future as an organization. But in this case as in others, the reduction of sources of conflict—i.e. the nuclear program—reduces the potential that they can act on that interest. 

I personally wish for a just resolution and the construction of Palestinian rights, addressing the Israeli occupation, which is of course the foundational grievance—the fundamental source of regional conflict. But if the Israelis and Americans had been smart, they could have leveraged the Iranian nuclear deal to de-escalate the rationale that has led Hezbollah to become as “dangerous” as it is now. 

Hezbollah claims a right to resist Israeli occupation, because Sheba’a farms, Kfarchouba, and Shmail Ghajar (northern Ghajar) are occupied by the Israelis. Okay. The Israelis could—in one hour—end Hezbollah’s legal claim of fighting to liberate occupied territory. They could do it in an hour, but they haven’t in the twenty-four years since they left south Lebanon. We can have a long discussion about Israel’s justification for this, but the point is that they could easily eliminate this issue by leaving those territories, which are not Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria. It’s not their big issue, and it’s also what the Lebanese who are opposed to Hezbollah recommended: Take away their raison d’etre! Put it in the UN trusteeship! Nasrallah himself said it, in 2000, “Let the Israelis leave Sheba’a. Then, the Israeli government can stand up and say ‘Do we occupy any more Lebanese land?’ To which the Lebanese will have to reply, ‘No.’ And the matter will be closed.”

If Israel cannot make a political concession on a grievance as small as that, where they sacrifice no strategic advantage whatsoever, then the prospects for any other de-escalation seem slim.

Ds: With the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas looking pretty much dead—certainly, the Netanyahu government doesn’t act interested in really pursuing them further—it seems like the Israelis and the Americans are going to try and leverage what’s being marketed as a unilateral wind-down, or semi-ceasefire, on the part of the Israelis, thereby de-escalating the conflict in the north. This seems like a huge long shot. Do you see any pathway to de-escalation that can bypass a bilateral Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement?

NN: The path to de-escalate the situation between Hezbollah and Israel is through an agreement with Hamas on Gaza, full stop. The Axis of Resistance is a coordinated front, and their coordinated strategy is working despite the evident devastation. If there is to be a durable ceasefire, it’s a question of Hamas’s interests and those of their allies, including among them Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Iran. They may broadly agree to something that sounds durable, but is, in fact, very temporary. 

But something that seems to get lost for analysts is the basic fact that these actors are in a war. Hezbollah and Hamas are not political actors driven by a need to de-escalate. These are military actors who deem military means as the only possible end to conflict. This is of course true, and perhaps even more true, for their Israeli counterparts: the belief that militarism is the only response. 

Ds: Israel seems genuinely open to the possibility of a northern front, and should this happen, I don’t imagine that we’re on the verge of rapid victory for the Axis of Resistance. If Israel does end up crossing the border into Lebanon to root out Hezbollah in the south, it could turn into a war of attrition—one that places a massive strain on Israel in terms of its military overextension and the economic burden of mobilizing that many reserves. What is Hezbollah’s calculus here? Do they draw Israel into a long war of attrition to accelerate the collapse they are anticipating, or are they geared towards a more rapid victory, trying to overpower Israel with force and end the war via shock?

NN: No, they know that shock and awe is not the way to succeed as an asymmetrical actor. It’s a long, patient strategy. My problem is with the idea that they can, over the long term, have a reasonable chance of success measured from their own metrics, which are deeply problematic. I’m not sure they can even reach success over the long term on their own terms. 

Ds: Do you think Hezbollah is preparing for a scenario in which Israel invades through Syria?

NN: If Hezbollah were betting on Assad for anything they’d be in a very weak position, but they know that. Hezbollah is sure of one thing, which is themselves, their fighters, and their allies—the true believers. Then there are people in the villages and the broader Lebanese milieu who are supportive, as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Houthis, and the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.

Ds: So if military escalation carries the day on both sides, what is the transition from the gray area that we’re in now to an open war? Would the Israelis initiate a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, with intense and widespread airstrikes leading up to it? Another possibility is a massive strike from Israel calibrated to spark a Hezbollah invasion of northern Israel. There have also been rumors (or boasts) from the Israeli side that they know Nasrallah’s location in real time. Could the threat of assassination spark an open war?

NN: We have no way to understand how this might begin. The Nasrallah target is a different issue, but I seriously doubt that after forty years they could get him. They can’t get Sinwar or Mohammed Deif or others.

But if we put speculation aside, the basic issue remains that Hezbollah is strong enough to represent an existential threat to the state of Israel. It’s very hard to understand how you diplomatically arrive at a deal, given the pretty clear pathway toward escalated conflict. I thought for a few months that the Israelis and the Americans could save face by accepting a deal in south Lebanon, with Hezbollah redeploying some of their elite Radwan units, but I don’t think that’s possible anymore. De-escalation has been deferred at every turn. There was a chance twenty-four years ago, and there was again a chance to render Hezbollah irrelevant via America normalizing relations with Iran, but right now we’re going towards a deeper conflict, and I don’t see how the actors that are involved can head that off.

jg: Can you speak about the southern Lebanon? It is a region that was under Israeli military occupation for almost twenty years, with Israel retreating in 2000 to the internationally recognized border. What was the political significance of the withdrawl? And what is the political culture of the South, vis a vis Hezbollah? 

NN: Having just been in the South with friends and family, I have to say that I never imagined that people who have historically been opposed to Hezbollah, who saw family members killed by Islamists affiliated with Hezbollah, would now be ready to fight with them. But in this era, it’s not really breaking news. From a personal perspective, I find it surprising—I never expected to see bartenders who hate Hezbollah buying weapons and preparing to defend their villages. But this degree of unity is not breaking news to, say, intelligence services of various countries. This may have something to do with why so many are confident in telling the Israelis to not pursue escalation.

We should also consider the pressure on Hezbollah from those same areas to end this conflict. This is also really important to the other major power broker in South Lebanon among Shia, which is Haraket Amal. At this point, it seems pretty fantastical to imagine Israel reprising its strategy from 1982, which was to drive a wedge between political, historical, or religious divisions among the people—funding a civil war, essentially.

Ds: What is Hezbollah’s endgame? We’ve heard Nasrallah talking about the “great war” for a long time. What is the great war, and does Hezbollah see itself as preparing for it at this moment? 

NN: We have seen pretty clear theorizations of how this ends, from both sides. Powerful Israeli actors have made public statements about what victory means: the people of Gaza killed or expelled to tents in the Sinai or wherever. The vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank would be also transferred somewhere else, maybe even Palestinian Israelis too. We know this vision of the endgame. 

For Hezbollah’s part, they have articulated extensively the view that Israel will not be able to withstand a “great war”—an open war with hundreds of thousands of fighters—presuming that scores of Israelis with second passports or easy paths for out-migration will leave the country rather than fight for it. The “great war” will create a cataclysmic moment for Israel. 

Let’s set aside some of the fantastical aspects of these two views, and attempt to look at it from a more realist perspective. It’s not a given that the Israeli state and its body politic will fracture under the pressure of a massive attack. It’s unclear whether enough people would suddenly leave Israel, or at least enough to create a kind of tipping point. Either way, a huge segment of Israelis may enter military service to fight for the land they believe is theirs. A fundamental aspect of the Hezbollah strategy for victory that Nasrallah has articulated repeatedly is something like: “In Lebanon, we’ve dealt with no electricity, no water, over decades, we can bear suffering. The Israelis cannot, and that will be their fatal flaw.” I’m as unconvinced by this as I am by the extremist Israeli vision of victory.

jg: The picture you’ve painted is one of many years of tensions stacking up such that escalated conflict is basically inevitable. And the fundamental fact underlying that inevitability is the military capacity of Hezbollah. Have analysts failed to internalize that the military balance is determinative? What do people get wrong about the conflict?

NN: It didn’t have to come to this—I wouldn’t go so far as to claim inevitability. The Israeli state has been militarily dominant for many decades. Within the responsive project by their opponents, Hezbollah has become the most successful faction to date, and Iran backed them quite successfully, such that in the present, Israel cannot act upon its doctrine of deterrence in regards to Hezbollah and Iran. Israel cannot disproportionately strike its opponents without a huge counter strike. That’s unprecedented in the state of Israel’s history, at least since its founding.

Actors on all sides of a war may see each decision as a gamble, so that if something goes wrong and you start a big war, it was simply a mistake. But that really reduces the legal, moral, and strategic responsibility required by the circumstances. In my view, there are no mistakes or miscalculations. I think we should say the truth, which is that the combatants are willing to risk escalation, and the relevant actors here are military actors. These are military actors who are in control. The Israeli destruction of Gaza is very calculated. They are good at this; so is Hezbollah, so is Iran—the unprecedented April 13 encounter is a measure of how these actors’ coordination can minimize harm. The single biggest anti-missile engagement in modern history resulted in a single partial casualty. This should tell us that any talk about “miscalculations,” let alone “stumbling into war” or whatever other metaphors are used, is incorrect. 

Further Reading
October War

An interview with Guy Laron on the Gaza War, failure of the Netanyahu doctrine, and risks of Middle east conflagration

Positioning Aden

Gregory Brew and Kaleb Demerew on oil and the Red Sea

Marketing War

An interview with Magdi el Gizouli


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An interview with Magdi el Gizouli

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