Will Israel Expand Its War into Lebanon? Rami Khouri on Netanyahu’s Latest Threats

Israeli defense minister yov Galant has arrived in Washington DC where he's expected to meet with defense secretary Lloyd Austin Secretary of State Anthony blinkin and others they're expected to discuss the situation in Gaza as well as Lebanon where fear is growing that fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could escalate on Sunday Netanyahu said the Israeli military will soon shift its focus to Lebanon un Secretary General Antonio gutes spoke Friday the risk for the conflict in the Middle East to widen is real and must be avoided when rash move when miscalculation could trigger a catastrophy that goes far beyond the border and frankly Beyond imagination let's be clear the people of the region and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza for more we're joined by Ramy huri Palestinian American journalist senior public policy fellow at the American University of beut he's also a non-resident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington welcome back to democracy Now Ramy so can you explain what exactly Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu means when he says they are finishing up their operations in Gaza and shifting to Lebanon to take on Hezbollah it means that he's really trying to find a new uh political format that he can present to the seven eight different political audiences that he is addressing simultaneously in Israel in the United States in Palestine and all around the world um Netanyahu is above all a multi-talented political Entertainer but he's a successful one uh he's been the longest serving prime minister I think ever in Israel and he does it by constantly juggling different audiences but he's got himself into a corner now um and the the pronouncement he made about the Gaza fighting is is almost over and we're going to shift to Lebanon now it that doesn't you can't take that at face value it just is a kind of a notional idea that hisbah and Lebanon are important we've got to pay attention to them they always have since the last 18 years uh they've done that uh but the the Gaza situation is not over the political contest the military contest um and the cont of Wills um is not over because it's not only manifested in Gaza the the Gaza Hamas Palestine versus Israel conflict or versus Israel and the us because they're really a joint team the US and Israel in carrying out this genocidal attack that contest is expressed in politics within the United States electoral coalitions um uh public activism uh legal cases and and and so many arenas now around the world um and inside Israel you have five or six different constituencies that are battling to get Netanyahu to pursue policies that they like whether it's to release the hostages end the war um find the peace agreement one day whatever so this is what he's doing he's just juggling all of these different constituencies uh and he he can't really do it uh anymore because he's been exposed uh the weaknesses of Israel have been exposed the weaknesses of the Israeli American Military Alliance and diplomatic uh tandem have been badly exposed as ineffective uh anywhere the US and Israel have worked together militarily diplomatically and politically in the last few years whether it's in Palestine or in Lebanon or elsewhere they have really not achieved their strategic goals um and this is probably just an inevitability um that uh had to happen at some point when Israel could no longer conduct its policies as it has for almost a century since Zionism started in 1917 until now for a century Israel has done very well in convincing the world that it is a moral force it needs to be protected Etc and it has succeeded but it's done that by camouflaging the realities of what it does and uh denying the Palestinians a voice in the global uh political sphere those periods are over and now the Palestinians are speaking speaking out everywhere there are political activism efforts with um Partners all over the world legal groups political groups student groups Union groups Church groups Jewish Progressive groups so this is where Netanyahu is trying to juggle the different balls that he's got to keep in the air at the same time and it's extraordinary that his own military command is at odds with him his own Coalition partners are at odds with him um and the US his biggest supporter is at odds with him so we have to not take what Netanyahu says at face value but understand it as a reflection of his uh self-produced uh painting himself into a corner uh and what the Israelis usually do in a situation like this is they talk about uh anti-Semitism the Holocaust the people who want to kill Jews all over the world evil people in the Arab region whether it's you know used to be Saddam Hussein or Isis or now it's Hamas and keep finding evil people and they talk and then they do military action they're very good at destroying things with their military force they're very bad at resolving the political underlying tensions that give rise to the to the militarism and Lebanon is also now a un an unprecedented new situation where the technical capabilities that hisbah has shown over the last 3 4 years it's shown what it can do technically militarily but in the last four five Days by releasing these videos of its surveillance drones and things like that it is showing that the Lebanon Israel border is more dangerous than ever because of the capabilities that uh hisbah has if there were to be a full scale War which I still doubt uh I think there's going to be limited skirmishes along the border but U the consequences of a full-scale war war would be just devastating for power plants uh you know even the uh airports or whatever ports and and Hezbollah showed aerial photos of the gas extraction positions that Israel has in the Eastern Mediterranean and so the message it's sending is you don't want to get into a fullscale war with us to the Israelis uh and so we have to just really see how this plays out not surprisingly the Americans have taken the Diplomatic lead and have not succeeded uh Ramy if you can talk more about this video which um bullet title to whom it may concern they released it on June 22nd uh featuring coordinates of sensitive and vital Israeli targets that would be struck in the event of a war against Lebanon marking the second such warning within less than a week the video beginning with a clip from um hisa leader Hassan nalo where he warns the Lebanese resistance will fight Without Limits rules or restraints if Israel wages a war against Lebanon the video beginning with a clip um uh the video begins with a clip um that uh uh of nasella uh the targets as you said including sensitive Targets in hia in asht the hadera power station uh the uh Ramat David military airport the pengon airport uh um as well as the Demona nuclear reactor um talk more about the sign ific of this and why you think actually it will not come to this well there are several really significant things about this first of all it shows the technical capabilities that hisbah has of evading the Israeli American very sophisticated defensive system and getting through taking photographs and coming back um it second of all it's important because it clarifies to the Israelis and the Americans who are really their Partners in Middle East Warfare and aggression it clarifies to them that the consequences of a war are not going to be defined only by what Israel decides to do historically Israel was more powerful whether it's with hisbah or Hamas or somebody else and it could start and end the war whenever it wanted that's no longer the case um as we see in U uh in in Gaza and third of all I think the third and most important message uh is the the fact that the Strategic balance between not just hisbah and Israel but between all of the forces in the region that are close to hisbah close to Iran close to Hamas close to the vast majority of Arab citizens probably 80 90% of Arab citizens around the region um are sympathetic to what hisbah and Hamas are doing in resisting Israel the message is that this uh Power that they have uh generated technological and military power uh is now on display and the Israelis should should take it seriously which also tells us should tell the Israelis U and the Americans if they're listening but they tend to listen but really not understand what's being said the message is that if hisbah has these capabilities you can be pretty sure that its friends and allies all around the region have either the same or something similar and or Iran will come and help them develop it soon or Hezbollah will help them develop it soon so we passed about two years ago we passed the point where Israel and the US dominated the Strategic uh uh realities uh military realities in the uh Middle East certainly in the Levant area um and now there's this uncertain picture and the Israelis have learned huge lessons or should have learned in Gaza of what they can and cannot do militarily um the Americans are still trying to figure this out uh and and Lebanon is now the next immediate cause of concern but it's not so immediate only because Netanyahu said we're looking at Lebanon now it's because for the last 10 years the Israelis have repeatedly said that hisbah is their main strategic concern in the region Hamas they always thought they could contain or destroy or whatever buts hisbah is much more formidable and the Israelis have always realized that and and and therefore they're now trying to focus on it but with nothing new to deal with the new realities and this is one of the great dilemmas that all of us have to deal with

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 5,140

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: -jmcCirk1TY

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2024