Israel's war on Gaza and Lebanon: For the Arab world, where are the red lines?

Israel’s decision to expand the war into Lebanon is driven by a series of goals that will impact the entire region. We must become accustomed to the idea that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in years of fighting, and disproportionate destruction across the Middle East.

It has been almost a year since the start of the genocide in Gaza, where Israel’s razing of infrastructure echoes the destruction of cities during World War II. It has done so in blatant violation of international law, all while receiving overwhelming western support.

I doubt that any other country, besides the US, could have accomplished all of this without paying a significant price.

But this might be Israel’s only success in the current campaign, built upon the moral and legal failures of the West. On the ground in Gaza, Israel faces a tough dilemma that will shape the country: the hostage crisis, which has faded from public discourse amid the war on Lebanon.

Israel’s political map is divided into two main camps on the war: a militaristic, right-wing camp that believes Israeli society must transform its culture from a western one to a combative one, as reflected by Brigadier General Barak Hiram, who, upon being appointed commander of the military’s Gaza division, criticised the “hedonistic” Israeli lifestyle. 

On the other hand, secular elites and the families of hostages lead a camp that imagines Israeli society as part of the West, and believes the state should do everything in its power to bring the hostages home. 

Both main camps in Israel support the war. This can best be summarised by a slogan raised by hostage families during protests in Tel Aviv after the bodies of six hostages were found: “A deal, and then we return.” This indicates that they want to make a deal with Hamas, bring back the hostages, and then return to conquering Gaza. 

Ironically, it’s through such opposition that we can understand the broad Israeli consensus supporting the war on all fronts.

Paying a price

Netanyahu fully understands the Israeli mindset and the difficulty in achieving his military goals. After nearly a year of war, Hamas has not been toppled, dozens of hostages remain in Gaza, and any ceasefire deal would be viewed as a failure to “destroy Hamas”. 

Amid the failure in Gaza, Netanyahu has shifted focus to Lebanon, apparently ready to pay a price in both Israeli lives and economic decline, alongside potentially massive destruction in Israel’s north.

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But the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the launch of a second front in Lebanon are not, as some analyses suggest, merely an attempt by Netanyahu to cling to power. Such reasoning lacks a deeper understanding of the Israeli mindset.

Netanyahu relies on two main pillars: the existential fear ingrained in the Israeli consciousness that if Israel loses its military superiority, it loses its right to exist (a classic colonial perspective); and a deep hatred of Arabs within Israeli society, whose political culture ignores the killing of Palestinians and Arabs, and is willing to take disproportionate and brutal steps with no self-criticism. 

Amid a culture of Jewish supremacy and ongoing western support, Israel is preparing for years of war

Netanyahu uses these two sentiments to escape from the failures in Gaza by waging more war and destruction. Even worse, if Israel does not succeed on these battlefields, it will be ready to go on the offensive without restraint across the region.

Netanyahu is trying to signal to other Arab regimes that if Israel fails to achieve its goals, more and more Arabs will die, and they will have to deal with the social and political consequences.

Israel has thus far failed to achieve the goals it set out at the start of the fighting in Gaza, as the military threats surrounding it - from Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon - continue to intensify.

Amid a culture of Jewish supremacy and ongoing western support, Israel is preparing for years of war. It is carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, with talk of displacing Palestinians to Egypt or Jordan.

But the Arab world, including the Palestinian Authority, has been largely silent as Israel exploits the current situation to seize more land. How much will the Arab region be willing to absorb without drawing red lines? 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.