Provoking Peace

By Niko Block - March 3, 2008

Over two weeks have passed since the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyeh by car bomb in Damascus, and all the while the Israeli public has waited with baited breath for a missile to land in Haifa, an explosion in Tel Aviv, or a counter-assassination in Jerusalem. That the bitter peace has somehow held on the Lebanon border has come to the surprise of many in Israel: the situation looked particularly grim in the wake of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration of “open war” at Mugniyeh’s funeral, which was followed by reports that tens of thousands of Hezbollah militants and “activists” were moving into southern Lebanon.

The press was flooded with contradictory reports about the killing: Mugniyeh’s widow blamed the Syrian government, and pointed to the fact that Iranian investigators had been blocked from investigating the case; American Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed there was evidence that members of Hezbollah itself had carried out the bombing; Syrian officials claimed that other Arab countries had conspired to kill the veteran saboteur.

But suspicion of Israeli culpability took the fore. Despite Israel’s denial of involvement in the assassination, most experts agreed that the bombing bore all the trademarks of Mossad. Olmert’s rebuttal to the accusations was even more vapid and ambiguous than any of the evidence against him. "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident," read a statement released by his office.

One report stated that Israel had knocked off the Hezbolloah leader because it had caught wind that he and the Syrian intelligence were planning an attack on Israel in response to the mysterious IAF bombing of a building in Syria that took place last September.

If Israel was behind the assassination, it would add yet another page to the volumes of covert illegal actions by the state. In September 2004 for example, a senior Hamas official, Ez El Din Al Sheikh Khalil, was blown up when he started his car in a prominently Palestinian neighborhood of Damascus. That assassination too was preceded by an IAF strike on a military base in Syria*, which came as Israel’s first attack on Syrian soil since 1973. Israel initially denied involvement in the car bombing, but it was soon leaked to the press that the assassination had in fact been executed by Mossad.

Raanan Gissin, advisor and spokesperson for the Sharon government, then defended the attacks by saying, "Just because Hamas leaders are operating from Damascus, this does not grant them immunity…There are no geographical boundaries when it comes to fighting terror."

As Seymour Hersh points out in reference to the more recent IAF strike, “The seemingly unprovoked bombing…was, by almost any definition, an act of war.” Following the disastrous 2006 Lebanon War, one would expect Israel to show more deference towards its neighbors. But it has pursued its characteristic mold of belligerence where it should be diplomatic; recklessness where it should err on the side of caution.

Hezbollah presents a particularly vexing problem for the Israelis – and Olmert should be counting his prayers that Israel has not yet been attacked; unlike Syria, the PA or even Hamas, Israel has no means by which to negotiate with Hezbollah. Israel's only means of undermining and placating the faction therefore are oblique. It would have to negotiate with Syria on the Golan and begin making tangible progress on the Palestinian peace process – meaning that Hezbollah is set to remain a force in the region for quite some time.

The group's interests in attacking Israel would come as a means to bolster its popular support in Lebanon, in the hopes that it may form the next government in Beirut. It already proved it can manage an invasion, and another war, following the chiding Winograd Report, would send Israel into political chaos.

But it’s a mistake to think that Hezbollah would have nothing to lose in the event of another war. If we are to find any explanation as to why we haven’t seen Katyushas flying over the Blue Line in the past two weeks it’s in a statement made by Nasrallah shortly after the 2006 war. In a televised interview, he stated that he would not have ordered the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers if he had known that it would spark a war that ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 1,100 Lebanese civilians and the unbridled decimation of south Lebanon’s infrastructure. Hezbollah, said Sheikh Nasrallah, would ignore Israel’s “provocations” in the future.

The Israelis apparently thought they had saved face with the general-secretary’s testimony; it was hailed as “Nasrallah’s mea culpa”, and was pointed to as proof that Hezbollah had lost the war. The Lebanese terrorists will think twice before retaliating against attacks on Arab soil. At last – Israel has secured the peace.

*The military base in Syria was reported to have been a Palestinian training camp, and was bombed in October 2003.