Israeli warplanes in Lebanon’s airspace – 1967 Arab-Israeli war redux?
This morning as Hezbollah prepares to make a statement on Israel’s attack on the Gaza, Israeli airplanes flew low and threateningly through Lebanese airspace according to local reports. These flights sound an ominous echo of Israel beating the drum for a larger offensive. Regardless of the intent, these flights over Lebanon are in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1710, which in August 2006 ended the Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel needs to tread carefully. If a broader war against the Arab nations breaks out, this is unlikely to be a case of the 1967 war redux. The enemies that Israel would face are a different breed to the 1967 foes - better armed, better organized and better trained. There is also the fact that there is a Muslim Jihad ‘irregular army’ out there currently active in conflicts against the West, in Afghanistan and Pakistan for example, that could well turn their focus back on Israel. Israel has a long and proud military tradition, at least from an Israeli perspective. They won the war in 1948 that many did not expect them to win, and as some historians will contest, were not intended to win by the Western powers departing the region. Again, in 1967 they struck a decisive blow against the amassed Arab nations that opposed them. Israel may have, however, in 2006 in the ‘war’ against Hezbollah in Lebanon, have got a taste that their military supremacy may not be perfect. If the Gaza escapade, many say the timing of which is more politically motivated than defense oriented, breaks out into a broader pan-Arab war, then Israel may have bitten off more than it can chew.
The ramifications of the Gaza attack are already spreading across the Arab world. There are widespread demonstrations, and a hardening of Arab attitudes towards Israel. Israel has suddenly turned the tide of a grudging acceptance of the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, to an outright outrage at the magnitude and severity of the Gaza bombardments. Many in the Arab world are terming the Gaza attacks a ‘massacre of innocents.’ There are reports that Syria has withdrawn from indirect peace negotiations. Egypt is facing broad Arab censure for its complicity in the blockade of the Gaza. In attacking Hamas in a blunt military strike as opposed to political or more surgical intervention, Israel may achieve what the Arab nations could not themselves – a unification of purpose with Israel as its focus. Israel may have also just caused the one outcome it didn’t want – a broadening of support for Iran and its nuclear weapon program among the Arab nations as a counter-balance to Israeli capabilities. Israel’s actions in the Gaza, regardless of whether one is supportive or not, may have jsut put Israel is a far more risky security situation than it faced from sporadic rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas in the Gaza.
Israel will look to the US for support if the conflict widens and the Jihadists begin an assault on Israeli interests. While the US has a political will to support Israel, the US populace has little stomach for a broadening of its troops engagements in the region. it wants its ‘boy brought back home’ not committed to another costly war front. Even if Obama proves a charismatic and popular President, he will not want to expend his political currency on a bloody Arab-Israeli war. Plus, the US military capability is already spread too wide with Iraq and Afghanistan. The West also has a focus on the potential for conflict between India and Pakistan. Israel may have just lit a fuse to a bomb, but where, when and if it explodes, is yet to be determined. The flights in Lebanese airspace were an unnecessary act of bravado. It may be seen as a show of strength in Israel, but it will be viewed as an act of mockery and challenge in the Arab world. It is also in breach of international law which makes it challenging for the pressured democracies in the West to condone. The West has its own problems – economically, poltically and militarily – and if Israel expects a broad coalition of military support, it may get words of support from friendly regimes, but precious little else. Israel needs to understand that if they push the Arab nations into a broader war, the 1967 result may not be repeated. The allegedly political expediency od the attack on the Gaza with the last few weeks of the lame-duck Bush Presidency giving them carte blanche and the Israeli right demanding action pre-election, may give Israel a much more longer term liability. How this plays out over the next few weeks and whether Israel continues to expand the frontiers of the attacks will be the determining factor. Israel is on a dangerous path, but it has the control over what the fallout of its actions will be.
