Latest / The Fourcast / Will Trump turn on Netanyahu over Israel Lebanon attacks?

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Will Trump turn on Netanyahu over Israel Lebanon attacks? · The Fourcast

0:00
Actually, what's the root cause of all of these conflicts in the
0:03
region between Israel and Hezbollah, between Israel and
0:06
Iran? And it's all comes down to
0:08
Israel's relationship with the Palestinians.
0:11
And as long as there's there's no resolution to that conflict,
0:14
there doesn't seem to my mind to be a real way to resolve these
0:18
other wider conflicts. Nobody wants perpetual war.
0:21
The Lebanese across the board want peace.
0:24
But they question if peace is possible with a neighbor that
0:28
continuously violates Lebanon's sovereignty.
0:31
If this war ends and Israel has occupied parts of southern
0:34
Lebanon, rather than Hezbollah feeling under pressure, that
0:38
will actually energize Hezbollah.
0:43
Hello and welcome to the forecast.
0:45
What's really going on in Lebanon.
0:47
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump announced A ceasefire with
0:50
Iran, Israel launched a massive wave of airstrikes targeting
0:54
Hezbollah, it said across the country, Iran says Israel is
0:58
violating the terms of the ceasefire.
1:00
So could the peace talks set to be held tomorrow in Pakistan
1:04
collapse before they've even started?
1:06
And is this exactly what Israel wants to discuss it?
1:09
I'm joined from Beirut by the Lebanese journalist and N
1:12
Irania, Abuja made, and here in London by our foreign
1:15
correspondent Sakanda Kamani, who has just returned from
1:20
Lebanon. Rania, let's begin with you.
1:22
I mean, what's the state of play in terms of attacks?
1:25
You know, Trump had said he had asked Israel to cool it.
1:31
Have they? Not down South, no.
1:33
They certainly have not cooled things down South and nor has
1:37
Hezbollah. I have to say they have also re
1:41
engaged Israeli troops in Lebanon as well as fired across
1:46
the border into Israel proper. Right.
1:48
But there, there was supposed to now be a talks process in which
1:52
the Lebanese government, not Hezbollah, will talk to the
1:57
Israelis in Washington. What?
2:02
What is the point of that? Well, that's a question that
2:04
many Lebanese are asking here as well.
2:06
They so, So it's a very divisive.
2:09
Let's start with that. The issue of talking with Israel
2:11
is very divisive. It breaks a huge taboo here in
2:15
Lebanon to have direct talks with Israel.
2:18
But more than that, it's also about the timing.
2:20
So about a month ago, more than a month ago now, Lebanon's
2:23
president broke that big taboo by suggesting direct talks with
2:28
Israel. And he set down 4 conditions for
2:31
those talks. The first was an immediate
2:33
ceasefire. And the fourth condition was the
2:37
direct talks. The Israelis rebuffed him
2:39
repeatedly on, you know, he, he repeated this, this overture
2:43
several times. And he was rebuffed every time
2:45
until yesterday, when Netanyahu all of a sudden agreed to this
2:50
to, to, to come to the negotiating table, which has
2:53
many Lebanese wondering about the timing.
2:56
I mean, this clearly sort of splits Lebanon off from whatever
3:00
might happen tomorrow in Islamabad in terms of the wider
3:03
ceasefire talks between the Iranians and the Americans.
3:08
Now the Lebanese government also wants to be split off from
3:13
whatever happens in Islamabad. Yesterday, the Prime Minister,
3:16
Nawaf Salam, made it very clear, He said that the Lebanese
3:19
government will negotiate for the Lebanese state and nobody
3:21
else. So he's also made that that sort
3:24
of division. I just came back from central
3:28
Beirut in front of the hilltop Grand Sarai, which is where the
3:31
prime minister's office is, and there were protesters who were
3:35
gathering to, to, to protest the idea of talks with Israel.
3:40
So it's a very, very divisive issue.
3:43
Lebanese fear that it's a ploy by some Lebanese fear that it's
3:46
a ploy by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
3:50
sort of continue the military offensive while these talks are
3:55
going on because the Israelis are saying come to the table
3:59
without a ceasefire. And the president said no, we
4:01
need a ceasefire. So it's unclear if these things
4:04
will even happen. They're unpopular, and the
4:07
question of the ceasefire is the sticking point.
4:10
Secunda, I don't like being cynical, but you have to be a
4:14
little bit cynical around around some of these announcements,
4:17
don't you? I mean, how, how much probably
4:20
how much do you think is the Lebanese Israeli talks idea and
4:25
acceptance about making sure that the Iranian American talks
4:30
in Pakistan can go ahead? Do you?
4:32
Think well, look, I mean it it you know, you heard from from
4:35
from Rania there that Israeli strikes very much continuing in
4:39
the South of Lebanon with Hezbollah fire as as well right
4:42
across the border back to to to Israel as well.
4:45
But I think it's, it's a certain it's, it's a clear, noticeable
4:50
shift in the scale and the intensity of those attacks.
4:53
What we saw in on Wednesday was huge with those, you know, 100
4:58
strikes in 10 minutes, devastating hundreds of people
5:01
killed. What we're seeing now is, is
5:04
more contained, of course, you know, terrible for those people
5:07
who are still there in the South, but not on that kind of
5:11
scale. And I think that it's quite
5:13
clear in my mind that that's the result of increased American
5:19
pressure on the Israelis, the Americans not wanting to give up
5:25
the chance of some kind of resolution to this global crisis
5:29
over what by comparison, is a a more localised conflict between
5:33
Israel and Hezbollah. I also wonder whether for the
5:36
Americans it may be somewhat useful for for their negotiating
5:42
position, for there to be some continued Israeli fire at
5:46
Hezbollah, because it then gives them something to offer the
5:49
Iranians in the discussions. Because the other Iranian
5:53
demands keeping hold of keeping the possibility of uranium
5:58
enrichment, for example, sanctions relief, a toll charge
6:01
on the Straits of Hormuz. These are big demands that the
6:04
Americans are going to want to push back on for them being able
6:08
to pressure the Israelis into scaling back their attacks,
6:11
scaling back their plans for an occupation of parts of southern
6:14
Lebanon are, are, I would imagine, easier concessions to
6:18
to to make. And so perhaps allowing the
6:21
attacks to continue on the A part of the Israelis is part of
6:25
America's negotiating position as well.
6:26
So, so in this rather complication, 3D chess, the the
6:29
Iranians have the, the pressure on the Straits of Hormuz, which
6:34
they they have, they have maintained their stranglehold on
6:37
going into the talks. You know, they have not opened
6:40
up the traffic and the Americans have the ongoing military
6:44
pressure in Lebanon. It's coming from Israel.
6:47
It's it's, it's a form of leverage, isn't it?
6:49
And and don't forget that Hezbollah, you know, face a lot
6:52
of criticism even initially from it's own core constituency, you
6:58
know, Shia Muslims in the South of Lebanon at the very beginning
7:01
for entering this war with Israel.
7:04
You know, when I spoke to to members of Hezbollah when I was
7:07
in Lebanon, they were clear that they did so because the terms of
7:10
the the ceasefire that was negotiated in in 2024 after the
7:14
last round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, you know,
7:17
Israel never abided by those those ceasefire times continued
7:20
killing people 500 the Lebanese people killed in around 18
7:24
months is well, of course, also said that that Hezbollah didn't
7:27
abide by those terms and was rearming in in the South.
7:29
But they said that was their rationale.
7:30
So I think Hezbollah felt and does feel under pressure to
7:34
deliver for the Lebanese people and certainly for its core, core
7:39
supporters, some kind of sign that they're they're entering
7:44
this war has given them some kind of benefit.
7:47
If this war ends with, if the ceasefire agreement ends with an
7:54
Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, people will ask
7:57
Hezbollah, what was the point? You, you must have gone into
8:00
this only, you know, not out of our interest, but only feel out
8:03
of the interest of supporting the, the, the Iranians.
8:06
And, and so I think Hezbollah feels under pressure to have
8:10
some kind of deliverable to, to its supporters.
8:14
And that means that the Iranians need to ensure that Hezbollah is
8:18
taken care of as part of this ceasefire talks as well.
8:22
Ronnie, I mean, is it at all clear after not just this period
8:30
of, of military action, but the killing of Nasrallah, the, you
8:35
know, wholesale degrading of, of Hezbollah in the previous war,
8:40
what they want, what they want their role to be in the future
8:44
of Lebanon? Well, I mean, so let's start
8:47
with what is Hezbollah? It has a military wing and it
8:50
also has parliamentarians. It has cabinet ministers.
8:53
It has social services and it runs hospitals.
8:56
It has schools. So Hezbollah, big bracket, a big
9:02
umbrella is, is a multifaceted organization in terms of its
9:05
military wing. Who is who?
9:07
Who are these fighters? We know who these fighters are
9:10
when we see the funerals. And the funerals are for men who
9:14
are from South Lebanon, who are from the Bikar, who are from
9:17
Bahalberg. So there are men who are
9:18
fighting and dying in the towns, in their own towns and villages.
9:23
And what they say they want is a stop, an end to Israeli threats,
9:27
an end to Israeli violations of Lebanon's sovereignty.
9:31
They say they want an end to Israeli occupation.
9:34
And actually, if the Israelis Secunder said, you know, if this
9:39
war ends and Israel has occupied parts of southern Lebanon rather
9:43
than Hezbollah feeling under pressure, that will actually
9:46
energize Hezbollah because it gives them that is their reason
9:50
for being. They emerged in 1982 after an
9:53
Israeli invasion that went all the way up to Beirut.
9:57
And then they they fought the Israelis down South in that
10:00
strip of territory that the Israelis occupied until 2000,
10:03
when Hezbollah helped, you know, through armed resistance, push
10:07
them out. So if anything, it might re
10:09
energize Hezbollah's base and not just Hezbollah's base.
10:14
But beyond that, I mean, especially after Wednesday's
10:17
attacks, yes, many, many Lebanese blame Hezbollah for
10:22
entering this war and the previous war.
10:24
Many question its motives. It is.
10:27
And it makes no secret of the fact that it is part of Iran's
10:30
axis of resistance. It is perhaps the crown jewel in
10:35
Iran's axis. So it's a very it it has, you
10:38
know, engaged in armed conflicts in Syria and in Yemen.
10:42
And it is sent to and in Iraq as well against ISIS.
10:46
So it has its own independent foreign policy.
10:50
Now, Sheknah and Qasim as well as Secretary general was
10:53
supposed to give a speech today, but he ended up issuing a
10:56
written statement where he said, I quote, he said the resistance
11:01
will continue until the last breath.
11:03
And he reiterated his his demands that the Lebanese
11:08
officials, quote, stop making free concessions to Israel.
11:13
And he sees talks as part of the free concessions, and he sees
11:16
the disarmament of Hezbollah as a free concession.
11:20
So after this war, depending on if the Israelis occupy parts of
11:25
southern Lebanon, that will have an impact on Hezbollah.
11:28
And also, whatever the government does, if it pushes
11:30
ahead with its plans to disarm the group, Hezbollah may counter
11:35
by trying to bring down the government.
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So either way, it's going to be a very, very rocky road here in
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Lebanon. No, precisely.
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I mean, the point of these talks from Israel's point of view is
11:43
to disarm Hezbollah. Now if if the Lebanese
11:48
government engages on that topic because it too wants to take
11:52
Lebanon out of this cycle of war, isn't the risk another
11:57
civil war? That is a fear.
11:59
That's a real fear. And that is something that that,
12:04
so, you know, there there's pressure on the Lebanese army,
12:07
which was disarming Hezbollah positions.
12:11
It was, it was finding, you know, weapons caches and things
12:14
like that South of the Litani River, which at its steepest is
12:17
about 30 kilometres from the Israeli border.
12:19
Because that was a, a condition of the ceasefire.
12:23
And it said that it had done, you know, it had cleared about
12:26
80% of the territory or 90% of the territory down there.
12:30
But it couldn't get into the rest of it because Israeli
12:33
forces continue to occupy a number of positions down South.
12:38
So, you know, the the Lebanese army commander on March 2, when
12:42
Hezbollah made the decision to reopen a front that frankly,
12:46
Israel never really closed as the Kunder said it continued
12:49
with its attacks. The first thing that the
12:52
Lebanese government did was declare Hezbollah's military
12:55
wing illegal. That was absolutely
12:58
unprecedented. And it called on the the the
13:01
Lebanese army commander to push forward with disarming the
13:06
group. Now he pushed back and he said,
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listen, it's not the time for it.
13:10
Now we're we're in another war. And he fears also what any
13:15
confrontation between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah
13:18
might might do. Because in the civil war, when
13:23
the Lebanese army was tasked with taking on sectarian
13:26
militias, it often splintered along sectarian lines.
13:30
And the Lebanese Army is just about the only national
13:33
institution which is considered above the sectarian fray.
13:38
And, you know, it's considered a uniter, not a divider.
13:41
And it is very highly respected. So, so, you know, challenging or
13:46
threatening the the cohesion of just about the one national
13:52
institution that everybody respects is a very, very
13:55
dangerous game to play. I mean, I think, you know, the
13:59
kind of issues that Ronnie is talking about speak to the
14:01
intractability of the of the conflict between Israel and
14:05
Hezbollah. Israel and Israeli politicians
14:08
seem to be certainly military officials seem to be realizing
14:12
now that they're that that it is not realistic for them to by
14:17
force disarm Hezbollah. And that's why you've seen in
14:21
language in recent days a rowing back.
14:24
And so whilst the Israeli defence minister had been
14:26
talking about occupying southern Lebanon right up to the Litani
14:30
River, now military officials are briefing the Israeli press
14:34
that the occupation would be around 4 or 5 kilometres deep.
14:39
And, and that is something that I think is a recognition of the
14:43
fact that it would not be feasible for them to hold such a
14:47
vast swathe of territory, given that the majority of the
14:51
population there is receptive to, supportive of, at least
14:54
ideologically, to Hezbollah. And as as Rani was saying, would
14:59
be energized by the prospect of fighting against some kind of
15:04
renewed Israeli occupation. So if Israel, with all its clear
15:09
overwhelming military superiority, does not think it's
15:12
feasible to disarm Hezbollah by force, how can it expect a much
15:17
weaker Lebanese state and Lebanese army to carry out that
15:20
process of disarmament, given the kind of history of sectarian
15:24
strife that we've seen in the past?
15:26
And, and, and to my mind, it comes down to actually what's
15:29
the root cause of all of these conflicts in the region between
15:32
Israel and Hezbollah, between Israel and Iran.
15:35
And it's all comes down to Israel's relationship with the
15:38
Palestinians. And as long as, as long as
15:41
there's there's no resolution to that conflict, there doesn't
15:44
seem to my mind to be a real way to resolve these other wider
15:48
conflicts. And so then you have Israel
15:50
carrying out its policy of what it has called in the past,
15:53
mowing the lawn. You know, a very offhand way of
15:57
describing having terrible attacks that cause huge numbers
15:59
of civilian casualties, but that involved, from an Israeli
16:03
perspective, setting back either Hezbollah or the Iranian regime
16:07
by a certain number of years in their military powers.
16:10
And then after that number of years pass, then carrying out
16:15
another set of strikes. It's this perpetual cycle.
16:18
It's absolutely the root cause. As Sikander points out, it is a
16:21
Palestinian issue. It is.
16:24
You know why? Why was it?
16:25
Why did Israel invade in 82, well before that, actually in
16:29
78, because there were Palestinian militants in the
16:31
South of Lebanon that were fighting because they wanted to,
16:36
to return to their lands. They were fighting for for
16:38
Palestine. And so, so this is all of these
16:42
things come back to Palestine. It's the same with, you know,
16:46
Syria with, with all of Israel's main sort of problems with the
16:49
region. If the Palestinian issue is
16:52
resolved, then it is easier to resolve many other issues.
16:56
I mean, let's go back to what we, I'm here in Beirut back in,
16:59
I think it was 24 years ago at an Arab summit, the Arab leaders
17:04
came up with an Arab peace plan and they offered Israel peace in
17:08
exchange for it withdrawing from occupied Lebanese, sorry,
17:11
occupied Arab territories. And it that, that deal has been
17:16
on the table for like at least 24, maybe 25 years now.
17:19
I think it was 2002 and that hasn't come to fruition.
17:23
So that that is the, the root issue and it's the root cause
17:26
and the peace plan is on the table.
17:28
I. Mean the.
17:29
The trouble is that in in a way, it doesn't really matter what
17:33
kind of politician you talk to in Israel that that proposition
17:38
is 1. They just will not accept.
17:40
I, I did an interview with Naftali Benatar about 3-3 or
17:43
four weeks ago in which I said precisely this.
17:46
You know that, you know, the, the only way of actually
17:49
breaking any kind of deadlock with Iran is to address the the
17:54
Palestinian issue. And he totally rejected it.
17:58
He said this was totally false. You know, the Iranians and
18:02
Hezbollah and Hamas were just, you know, ideologically,
18:07
religiously, innately wedded to the hatred and erasure of Israel
18:15
effectively. And, you know, that was the
18:17
problem and that, you know, it wouldn't matter if you created
18:21
a, a Palestinian state And, and that kind of approach is very
18:27
widely felt, you know, in, in Israel.
18:29
So you you end up with this situation with, with half the
18:32
world saying, well, you've got to source out the Palestinian
18:34
problem and Israel saying that wouldn't make a blind bit of
18:36
difference. You're right, when you speak to
18:38
Israelis, they often, they often describe Iran as the head of the
18:41
snake, you know, the root cause of all, of all issues that it it
18:45
and all troubles in, in, in the Middle East.
18:48
Whereas you know, I think actually if you look at it, the
18:50
root causes as we, as we've been discussing the Israel Palestine
18:53
dispute, no doubt there are people in the Iranian regime,
18:57
there are people in Hezbollah who want to raise Israel off the
19:00
map, who do not believe in, for example, A2 state solution.
19:03
But to to my mind, it seems clear that if you, if you want
19:07
to have a regional peace, then a just solution with the
19:12
Palestinians is essential because it at least undercuts
19:15
the narrative from those other hardliners who don't want to see
19:20
any kind of of compromise as well.
19:22
I mean, what struck me when I was in Lebanon is how many
19:24
people there believe that Israel's attack.
19:27
Certainly, you know, people who were from the South, for
19:30
example, believe that Israel's attacks on southern Lebanon on,
19:34
on Hezbollah are not about Hezbollah, are not about
19:39
anything other than a Greater Israel project.
19:42
And, you know, that's fuelled by comments by people like the
19:45
finance minister, Bezil Smotrich, who is a, a settler
19:48
himself and who, you know, advocates for, for increasing,
19:52
you know, who would aspire to create settlements in, in, in
19:56
Lebanese territory, in Syrian territory in the future, as well
19:58
as in Gaza and of course in the West Bank now, you know.
20:02
In our trips to, to, to Israel, that doesn't seem to be the, the
20:05
overriding public sentiment. The, the public sentiment there
20:08
is, is, I think something very different.
20:10
It's it's certainly shifted dramatically to the right post
20:13
October the 7th. And it sees any kind of
20:16
possibility of any threat as something that needs to be
20:19
completely eliminated and stamped out at no matter the
20:22
consequences for civilians, no matter what.
20:25
I would say really for what international law says about
20:28
some of those attacks. I mean, are are we, are we all
20:31
ending up in a position where we're saying there is no
20:34
solution? I spoke to a Hezbollah MP after
20:36
2024. I'd love to hear what Ronnie
20:38
says about this. But, you know, I, I said, I said
20:41
to him, it doesn't seem to me sustainable, the position of,
20:44
of, of Hezbollah that you start a war, as many people would say,
20:50
or you enter a war with, with Israel, then you know, there's
20:55
tremendous devastation that's inflicted on the, the Lebanese
20:59
population. After 10, you rebuild, people
21:02
rebuild. After 10-15 years, the same
21:05
thing happens again. And he's turned down to me and
21:07
said it's destiny, it's destiny. And and and so for him it was
21:12
inescapable and intractable. Ronnie.
21:15
Look, nobody wants war. The people of the South don't
21:18
like being displaced there. The southern Lebanon is some of
21:22
the most beautiful, some of the most verdant, some of the most
21:26
important agricultural territory.
21:28
The villages that are now being raised are older than Israel.
21:32
There are olive trees down in the South.
21:33
I mean, if an olive tree is a couple of 100 years old, it's
21:36
considered young. This is nobody wants to leave
21:39
their homes. Nobody wants perpetual war.
21:42
The Lebanese across the board, regardless of what they think,
21:46
want peace. But they question if peace is
21:50
possible with a neighbor that continuously violates Lebanon
21:54
sovereignty. If we look at the period between
21:57
2006, which was when, you know, the major, there was a major war
22:00
with Israel and 2023 when the, when the there was another war
22:06
with Israel. Those those intervening years
22:09
were relatively peaceful down South.
22:11
And yet Israel continued to violate Lebanon sovereignty with
22:15
overflights not just in the South but also in Beirut.
22:19
And there were thousands of these violations every year that
22:23
the United Nations peacekeepers down South would clock and
22:26
present in a report to the UN Security Council, and yet
22:29
nothing happened. So it's a question of
22:32
sovereignty. It's a question of, yes, you
22:34
know, the Israelis talk about how they want security, but are
22:37
other states in the country allowed to defend them?
22:39
Sorry, in the region allowed to defend themselves, too?
22:42
Is Lebanon, Does Lebanon have the right to defend itself?
22:45
Does Syria? Do Palestinians, this is a an
22:49
Israeli administration, let's not forget Benjamin Netanyahu
22:53
and you have Gallant, the former defence minister, are wanted by
22:57
the ICC for war crimes, genocide.
23:00
Scholars say that genocide has taken place in Gaza.
23:04
Yesterday, I think the Israeli government approved 34 new
23:11
settlements in the West Bank, which is a violation of
23:15
international law. So either international law
23:18
applies to everybody, including Israel, and Israel's neighbors
23:21
can live in peace, or, unfortunately, it looks like
23:24
this perpetual cycle of war will continue.
23:27
I think there was a bit of an attitude that is not necessarily
23:30
spoken out loud, but but it but is held nonetheless, which is
23:35
that well, Lebanon is a failed state anyway.
23:38
It doesn't work. You know, it can't get rid of
23:41
Hezbollah. The power sharing that goes on
23:43
in the parliament doesn't really work either.
23:46
It's unable to have proper elections.
23:50
And you know, it's banking system is a mess, you know, so.
23:55
So before this latest war, to what extent was Lebanon
23:59
functioning? Well, I mean, the same argument
24:01
could be made of many other states in the region.
24:04
Does Israel make sense? You know, does do any of these
24:08
states whose borders were arbitrarily drawn by a Frenchman
24:12
and a British guy make sense? But they're, you know, Lebanon
24:15
has existed for thousands of years.
24:17
So has serious of has Palestine. So have many other of the states
24:20
of the Middle East. Certainly Lebanon has its
24:22
problems, and nobody knows that more than the Lebanese.
24:27
There was, let's not forget, a massive protest movement in 2019
24:31
against the very politicians that drove Lebanon toward failed
24:36
state status. It has its problems.
24:39
It has its issues. The very agreement that ended
24:42
the Lebanese civil war, that Taf agreement in 1990 has not been
24:47
fully implemented. So, and that government that
24:50
that also pertains to the governing structure, there was
24:54
supposed to be a Senate, There hasn't been a Senate.
24:57
It was supposed to be a removal of sectarianism from the
25:01
political system. That hasn't happened.
25:03
So there are many things that Lebanon still needs to sort out
25:06
and nobody knows that better than the Lebanese.
25:10
I mean, it's interesting to me thinking about attitudes to
25:14
Hezbollah basically within the country.
25:16
I mean, at the start of this war, as I said earlier,
25:20
certainly you heard heavy criticism from Sunni and
25:23
Christian communities of the decision to to enter the war and
25:27
initially heard criticism from within Hezbollah score
25:30
constituency as well. But in subsequent discussions I
25:34
had with with with people who were displaced from the South,
25:37
who were staying in the South, they said actually in the face
25:40
of Israel's attacks, there was a rally round the flag effect.
25:44
The prospect of an Israeli occupation was something that
25:48
was uniting them back around support for, for for Hezbollah.
25:53
So it, it really just seems to me that, you know, this Lebanese
25:57
state has a problem and a difficulty with Hezbollah's
26:01
presence. The state within a state that
26:04
many see is it having created, You know, it runs a TV channel
26:09
and, you know, paramedic service.
26:11
It's a political party in the South.
26:13
It provides a lot of the social services.
26:15
It pays for the rent. Often, you know, during
26:19
conflicts that are displaced, peoples have to get to to, to
26:22
give out once they've been pushed out of their homes by
26:25
Israeli evacuation orders. So the Lebanese state has a
26:28
problem with Hezbollah. Israeli state clearly has a
26:30
problem with Hezbollah. But it's not going to go away.
26:33
It's not going to disappear, certainly not with Israeli
26:36
military action. The fact that the Israelis were
26:39
in southern Lebanon from 82 to 2000 and the Hezbollah just grew
26:45
within that period testifies to that, I mean.
26:48
Hasn't that also been a sort of a slight turning on its head as
26:50
a result of this Iran war, of the the whole question of
26:55
survival, victory and who is on the up and who is on the down?
26:58
You know, after the killing of Nasrallah in the last war, there
27:02
was a feeling, you know, that Israel had effectively won.
27:05
You know, it's done massive damage to Hezbollah after this
27:11
war. Now with Iran, there is the
27:13
opposite feeling in a lot of these places, where Iran feels
27:16
that by surviving it is the victor.
27:20
Hezbollah must feel the same way.
27:21
It is still standing. It is still able to send rockets
27:24
over to Israel. It is still able to project
27:27
threats to northern Israel. And that actually gives it a new
27:30
lease of life. Absolutely.
27:31
I mean, same with Hamas in Gaza, for example.
27:33
I mean, it is partly because all these organizations and regimes
27:36
have a lower bar for what they term as victory.
27:39
Whereas the Israelis set out with these grandiose plans that
27:42
we're going to occupy the entire South of Lebanon, we're going to
27:44
completely eliminate Hamas, we're going to completely disarm
27:48
Hezbollah. And then none of it ends up
27:49
being possible. And you know, hundreds,
27:51
thousands of innocent people are, are killed along the way
27:54
by, by the Israelis. And, and so yes, I, I, I agree.
27:58
I think this shows this whole episode shows the limits of
28:02
Israel and America's military prowess that yes, they have air,
28:06
air superiority. They can strike whoever,
28:09
whatever they want, but it doesn't mean that they will get
28:13
the outcome that they desire, that they anticipate.
28:17
And Rania, just finally, I mean, it's been, it's been seeming to
28:20
me that it with Iran and America, it seems impossible
28:24
that they can actually reach a formal deal because their their
28:28
positions are so far apart. It's more likely they will end
28:31
up basically just sort of stopping and saying, you know,
28:35
agreeing some sort of informal agreement over the Straits of
28:38
Hormuz, but just kind of walking away and licking their wounds.
28:43
Do you think that is also a likely outcome with regard to
28:48
Lebanon and and Israel? But it it just kind of quietens
28:51
down again until the next time it flares up.
28:54
You know, the truth is, Krishna, nobody knows because there are
28:57
so many different moving parts at the moment with the idea of
29:00
these talks between Lebanon and Israel, if they'll even go
29:04
through what, you know, named Qasim, Hezbollah secretary
29:09
general, reiterated again today that the battlefield will do the
29:13
talking as far as Hezbollah is concerned at the moment.
29:16
So they're hoping to sort of secure battlefield gains, which
29:18
will give them a stronger political hand in whatever comes
29:22
next after this war. And it inevitably, hopefully
29:25
ends sooner rather than later. You know, So it's, it also
29:29
depends, like Secunda was saying about how, how Israel initially
29:33
said that they wanted to occupy up until the Litani.
29:35
Now they're talking about 3 or 4 kilometres in and Hezbollah is
29:38
going to try and prevent even that.
29:40
So, so it's too many moving parts and it depends on, on, on
29:45
what ends up happening, what, what the lay of the land is.
29:49
And then, you know, we'll see. But but surely, you know, these,
29:53
these are big, huge, intractable issues.
29:56
The issue of Hezbollah's weapons.
29:58
The state says they want to disarm.
30:00
Hezbollah has said no way they will not disarm as long as
30:04
Israel continues to be a threat. Will Israel agree to stay on its
30:09
side of the border and not even, you know, do the overflights
30:12
that it was doing between 2006 and 2023, will it respect
30:17
Lebanon's sovereignty? Will, you know, it talks about
30:20
how the Israelis in the north have to feel safe.
30:23
Well, what about the Lebanese in the South?
30:25
How are they going to feel safe? Are they allowed to feel safe
30:27
too? So there are, there are lots of
30:30
different really, really big issues and and it's it's going
30:35
to take some time to to sort through them domestically in
30:38
Lebanon in terms of Hezbollah and it's weapons and also
30:41
between Lebanon and Israel. Rania, thank you very much
30:45
indeed for your time. Sukanda, thank you.
30:48
That's the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.