How much substance is there behind the Palestinian and Hezbollah rhetoric about Israel?

By Jonathan Spyer Ali Ramzi al Aswad, a high-ranking member of the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, was shot dead on Sunday, March 19, in the Qudsaya area of ​​Damascus. According to a report by the pro-Hezbollah and pro-Assad Lebanese newspaper, al Akhbar, unidentified attackers fired more than 30 shots with automatic weapons at al Aswad, while the Islamic Jihad operative walked from his home to his car. Al Akhbar and other regional media outlets immediately assumed that Israel was responsible for his death.An editorial in al Akhbar, published on March 20, sought to locate the death of al Aswad within the broader context of the current escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.This escalation follows the significant increase in violence this year in the northern West Bank and growing indications that the Lebanese Hezbollah, with its Iranian backers, is behind it, seeking to aid, capitalize on and expand the scope of this violence. In this sense, the recent incident in Megiddo, in which an operative entered Israel from Lebanon equipped with weapons that included a sophisticated M18 Claymore mine, represents so far the clearest practical evidence of this attempted link. So how seriously should these efforts be taken?The editorial of al Akhbar was written by the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Amin. Amin is a close associate of Hezbollah’s leadership and the movement’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. As such, his writings often reflect the thinking of mainstream pro-Iran axis in Lebanon and elsewhere and therefore deserve special attention.Amin places the current events within the framework of the month of Ramadan, which began this week. He claims that “visible and non-visible events, consultations and contacts” suggest that “the coming month of Ramadan will be an occasion to announce a new and more effective level of coordination between resistance forces throughout the region.” Amin goes on to point out the position “recently launched by resistance leaders regarding the unity of the sands…which aims to raise resistance activity within Palestine to a level that opens the door for a comprehensive uprising.”Members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad parade in Gaza Photo: Palestinian Islamic Jihad saraya.ps The “resistance,” according to Ibrahim Amin, “realizes that direct, qualitative action in the entire area of ​​historic Palestine represents the starting point for the entire liberation project.”From this point of view, Amin maintains that al Aswad’s death reflected the Israeli desire to respond to the Megiddo “operation” and evidence that indicated the aforementioned “unity of the sands.”Israel’s goal, Amin suggests, was to strengthen deterrence, while avoiding an “uncontrolled escalation” and deterioration of an overall conflict. The choice of target, a Palestinian from an organization backed by Iran and Hezbollah, and the location, Syria rather than Lebanon, were calibrated to achieve this precise effect, the editor of al Akhbar.This year’s approach to Ramadan, Amin continues, has been distinguished by the presence of what he calls a “foolish government” in Israel, and the resulting “internal crisis in the occupying entity in an unprecedented way, amid the escalation of regional conflicts “dangerous for Israel, especially from Iran and the northern front.”“Everyone,” Amin concludes, “is waiting for different days in the next Ramadan, and above all the enemy, who does not give up even for an hour from the crimes of massacre and murder.”It is worth noting that Ibrahim al Amin’s editorial is primarily a response to a somewhat discouraging event for his readers and patrons, namely the successful penetration, as he perceives it, of his side’s territory by his enemies, and the targeted assassination of a top operative. However, the views expressed in it reflect a widespread position reflected in other statements by leaders and spokespersons of the pro-Iran regional alliance.Specific and common elements are the conviction that their cause is served by internal disunity and conflict in Israel, and the desire to link the evident renewed desire for confrontation in the West Bank with the capabilities and capabilities of Iran and its clients.Recent statements by Nasrallah himself and senior Hamas military officials, including Marwan Issa and Saleh al Arouri, have followed similar lines.Meanwhile, a series of meetings of senior Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials over the past week suggest at least a desire to project an image of coordination.According to a statement issued Sunday by Hezbollah’s press office, Nasrallah recently met with a delegation led by Saleh al Arouri of Hamas. The discussion, according to the statement, focused on “the latest developments in occupied Palestine, especially the resistance in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”Arouri is the highest-ranking Hamas military operative currently active on the external front. Previously based in Turkey, he claimed responsibility for organizing the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli Jewish teenagers, leading to Operation Protective Edge in 2014.Nasrallah also met last Saturday with the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziad al Nakhala, and the delegation accompanying him. Nasrallah and al Nakhala agreed to “continue consultations and coordination with a view to enhancing resistance against Israel,” according to a statement later released by Islamic Jihad.How should all this be interpreted?First, it should be noted that expressions of bellicose self-confidence by this camp, sometimes with only superficial similarities to reality, are not a new development.A narrative prevails here according to which the violence of May 2021 represented the birth of a new paradigm in the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. What the Israelis call Operation Guardian of the Walls is called by Hezbollah and its allies the battle of Saif al Quds (Sword of Jerusalem).Robert Inlakesh, writing on the pro-Hezbollah media website to Mayadeen In May 2022, he characterized the alleged new developments of this period in the following terms: “The tactics used by armed groups, such as; Slowly revealing new weapons technologies, attacking everywhere within the 1948 territories, temporarily closing Israeli airports and controlling the course of the battle, all this showed the entire region the weaknesses of ‘Tel Aviv’.”The latest statements by Nasrallah and Issa, and al Amin’s editorial, must be seen as coming from this insight. However, a colder look at the situation would require recognizing that even in 2021 the expected mass mobilization of Palestinians in support of a new intifada did not occur. It didn’t happen in Ramadan 2022 either, despite the spike in violence. Nor has it happened so far this year, despite the very significant increase in violence in the West Bank since the beginning of 2023.The key question, however, is not the accuracy of the insights revealed in al Amin’s editorial and Inlakesh’s somewhat overheated prose. Rather, the key question is the extent to which those who publicly profess these views, especially among decision makers in that field, are genuinely convinced of them. After all, rhetoric can play a compensatory and comforting role. It can divert attention from a more cautious and pragmatic praxis. In the Arab world, as is well known, it very often fulfills this function.Is this the case here? Or is something more substantive being revealed?This brings us back to the incident at Megiddo. All relevant information is not publicly available. But this is what is known: the forces that control the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border, that is, Hezbollah and its Iranian masters, chose to launch or allow the launch of an operation involving the use of sophisticated military technology. which, if successful, would have resulted in an act of terrorism involving a large number of victims.Such an action would undoubtedly have provoked a significant Israeli response. The fact that they carried out or approved such an operation would seem to indicate that the assessment outlined in Ibrahim al Amin’s editorial following the death of Ali Ramzi al Aswad in fact reflects the opinion held by key figures in the highest echelons of Hezbollah and among the Iranian forces behind the latter. This should be a matter of consideration for all those concerned about Israel’s security and maintaining its deterrence.Source: The Jerusalem PostPost navigation