A couple of weeks ago the coalition government in Lebanon collapsed after Hezbollah quit the government in protest of an ongoing investigation that was set to accuse Hezbollah of complicity in the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese Prime Minister. After a power struggling lasting for several days, Hezbollah has emerged as a front-runner to form a new government in Lebanon with a billionaire Prime Minister candidate that it supports.
The potential for a Hezbollah-backed government in Lebanon is a cause of concern…
- Hezbollah receives a lot of support from Iran, so the rise of a Hezbollah-backed government would potentially give Iran greater influence in the region.
- Hezbollah is also an antagonist of the U.S. and Israel so relations between Israel and Lebanon and the U.S. and Lebanon could be severely damaged with the rise of a Hezbollah-backed government.
The potential rise of a Hezbollah-backed government in Lebanon has caused some people to even reassess their outlook on a potential war between Israel and Hezbollah. I argue that war between Israel and Hezbollah seems inevitable regardless of whether a Hezbollah-backed government controls Lebanon or not. Today I’ll share why I believe another war between Israel and Hezbollah seems inevitable.
Israel and Hezbollah have clashed several times over the past few decades. The most recent clash came in a 2006 war that attracted the world’s complete attention.
- I remember watching continuous reporting of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war on American television news stations with reporters stationed in Lebanon and Northern Israel for over a month. I also remember watching retired U.S. military officers and political pundits emphasizing that Israel had a chance to wipeout Hezbollah forever if it fully committed itself to destroying Hezbollah during the conflict.
Unfortunately, Israel was unable to fully defeat Hezbollah and remove Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah from power before hostilities stopped. The war ended with a United Nations (U.N.)-brokered ceasefire agreement where thousands of U.N. troops and the Lebanese Army were given the task to disarm Hezbollah. Instead of overseeing the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Army and the U.N. troops in Lebanon have failed to deter Hezbollah from rearming beyond its 2006 pre-war levels.
- To illustrate how ineffective the U.N. forces in Lebanon have been, a Bloomberg reporter witnessed U.N. peacekeepers being deterred from inspecting a suspected Hezbollah weapons cache by a group of unarmed Hezbollah fighters.
- Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army has refrained from stopping Hezbollah’s rearmament. In fact, Lebanon’s Defense Minister admitted that the Lebanese Army was not going to do much to disarm Hezbollah shortly after the ceasefire agreement was reached in 2006 when he said “The army won't be deployed to south Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, something which Israel wasn't able to do itself"
Hezbollah’s rearmament has been an ongoing process for the past few years. The obvious weapon suppliers for Hezbollah include Iran, who provides around $200 million a year to Hezbollah in funding and training for Hezbollah fighters, and Syria, whose territory is used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. In addition, Turkey is believed to have sent “sophisticated weapons, rockets and guns” to Hezbollah through Syria’s borders. Meanwhile, North Korea has made at least one publicized effort to provide Hezbollah weaponry in the past couple of years.
Recent estimates suggest that Hezbollah now possesses more than 50,000 rockets To give you an idea of how significant 50,000 rockets are, Hezbollah bombarded Israel with just 4,000 rockets in 34 days of war in 2006. Thus, Hezbollah has at least twelve times more rockets at its disposal now than it launched in 2006. In addition, Hezbollah may also possess the following:
- 10 Scud-D Missiles, which can travel well into the borders of Israel with good accuracy.
A Beirut-defense analyst recently noted that Hezbollah is also currently searching for ways to neutralize Israel’s nearly unchallenged air superiority with advanced anti-aircraft weaponry.
I mention Hezbollah’s major rearmament effort because the fact that they are making a major effort to rearm suggests that they anticipate another conflict with Israel in the future. If Hezbollah truly wanted peace they would have already complied with the U.N. ceasefire agreement to disarm. Instead, Hezbollah has demonstrated a desire to fight Israel in the future with their rearmament effort.
By reviewing a couple of statements by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah it seems that one of Hezbollah leadership’s top goals is to eliminate Israel:
"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel"
Unsurprisingly, Hezbollah's political program/charter states: “The Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated”
The statements above suggest that war between Israel and Hezbollah seems inevitable because Hezbollah appears determined to work towards the elimination of Israel. Israel is not going to voluntarily disappear so Hezbollah sees the need to pursue Israel’s elimination through armed conflict. Thus, Hezbollah is rearming for another war it appears to find inevitable if it wants to achieve one of its chief goals.
Although war between Israel and Hezbollah seems inevitable, Hezbollah may not engage in a large-scale attack of Israel in the short-term because they’ll probably focus on legitimizing their position as the leader of the Lebanese government in the short-term. Some media reports suggest that Hezbollah has to work on incorporating various domestic political groups into a unity government in order to avoid another civil war in Lebanon. If/when a unity government is established Hezbollah then has to work to serve the Lebanese people so another collapse in government is avoided. In sum, Hezbollah is going to have a lot of things to do first in Lebanon before it considers initiating a new round of armed conflict with Israel.
However, when that seemingly inevitable war comes the question will be whether the war is going to be limited to just Israel versus Hezbollah. Judging by how Syria and Iran have worked hard to rearm Hezbollah it does not appear Syria and Iran are going to sit back and watch their investment get obliterated by the vastly superior Israeli military. The answer to this question becomes clearer when looking at the defense agreements that exist between Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah.
- Syria and Iran signed a defense pact where they agree to join forces against Israel.
- Syria signed a defense pact with Hezbollah last year where each side agrees to come the other’s aid in case of war against Israel. The defense pact includes an agreement to jointly attack Israel together.
The existence of these two defense pacts suggest that Israel is going to have to battle with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran if war involves any of these three entities. For instance, Iran is brought into a Hezbollah versus Israel war because its military ally Syria is brought into the war to support Hezbollah against Israel.
Regardless of what happens, Israel cannot be eliminated by any of its enemies. Israel is still in existence when the seventieth week of Daniel (the seven year period that most people refer to as the “tribulation”) begins and will survive even the Antichrist’s attempts to destroy the nation of Israel. Israel’s enemies prefer that Israel ceases to exist, but their wishes will never be fulfilled because God won’t let that happen.
