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From Schwartz Media, I’m Scott Mitchell, filling in for Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

On the border between Lebanon and Israel – there’s an active conflict.

Hezbollah, the most powerful non-state military force in the world, and Israel – are firing on each other.

For now, the combat is contained, but a war would be devastating.

Today, world editor of The Saturday Paper Jonathan Pearlman, on what happens if Israel and Hezbollah go to war.

It’s Thursday, November 16.

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SCOTT:

Jonathan, Right now there is fighting on the border between Israel and Lebanon. What do we know about what's been happening?

JONATHAN:

Yes. So one of the first actions that Israel took after Hamas fighters broke across into Israel on October seven, sparking the, the war that's gone on for more than a month now. One of the first actions that Israel took was to bomb two airports in Syria.

Audio excerpt – News Reporter:

“According to Syrian officials, Israel carried out strikes today on Syria, hitting both the airport in Damascus and also the airport in Aleppo. Now, those airports were at least temporarily forced to close.”

JONATHAN:

Which probably went little noticed at the time but Israel since bombed those airports again. And the reason they did that was not because they were worried about Syria entering the conflict, but because those airports were reportedly being used to send arms to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

And what we've seen in the last few weeks, really since October eight, was fighting between Israel and Hezbollah gradually escalating.

Audio excerpt – News Reporter:

“As a real fight, Hamas in Gaza and the South of Israel, the IDF also triggered rocket fire with Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon.”

JONATHAN:

It started with Hezbollah attacking the small patch of land, which is sort of disputed territory between Israel and Lebanon. And it's gradually just escalated into a series of tit for tat moves. But the pace and intensity has continued to increase.

Audio excerpt – Speaker:

“We're hearing that six people were hit when an anti-tank missile was fired across the border from Lebanon into the northern part of Israel. We understand that they were electrical workers who were repairing lines that had been hit in a previous attack.”

JONATHAN:

Hezbollah has attacked Israeli military infrastructure. Now, in response, Israel has launched airstrikes on southern Lebanon. And they, too, have been going deeper and deeper into Lebanon. So far, Hezbollah said more than 70 fighters have been killed. Others have also been killed in these airstrikes. Notably, there was a Reuters journalist who was hit in a missile strike from Israel on southern Lebanon. Six other journalists were injured.

And these exchanges that we're seeing are really the deadliest and most intense since there was a cross-border war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. And military commentators are saying that in normal circumstances, these aren't really normal circumstances, this sort of fighting would have escalated into a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah.

SCOTT:

Right, Jonathan, but it, it hasn't erupted into that full scale war just yet. Why is that?

JONATHAN:

Well, we had our most detailed insight into what Hezbollah is thinking from its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who has spoken twice since October seven. He spoke most recently last weekend.

And when he speaks, he speaks from a secure location. And there are screens erected for supporters at a public event where he appears.

In his comments from those two speeches, he has warned that Hezbollah is keeping all options open, which presumably means that it is open to the possibility of an all out war with Israel.

Audio excerpt – Hassan Nasrallah: (translation)

“The demeanour of the enemies against Lebanon will be a factor in play. I am speaking openly, candidly, and at the same time with ambiguity, constructive ambiguity, all scenarios are open.”

JONATHAN:

He has said that he expects this conflict to take years. Now, all of this and these comments have been read as a sign that Hezbollah does not actually intend to launch a full scale war yet.

But to understand what he was saying and what his position is, it's important to understand that Hezbollah, its very existence, involves opposition to Israel. It began as a Shia group in the early 1980s when Israel occupied parts of southern Lebanon. Israel had invaded Lebanon in 1982 to oust Palestinian militant groups from Beirut. But that occupation led to Hezbollah taking on the fight against Israel. It used suicide bombings and guerrilla tactics. And eventually Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.

But Israel still looms large in Hezbollah's ideology. Even today, when a Hezbollah fighter is killed in fighting. The group says that the fighter died on the road to Jerusalem.

Audio excerpt – Hassan Nasrallah: (translation)

“There must be a big event to shake this aversive occupier occupying usurping Zionist regime with their backers in Washington and London.”

JONATHAN:

So from Israel's perspective, in terms of the war against Hamas, it's confident that it can defeat Hamas militarily, even though it's admitted that it could be looking at a war that could take months or even a year.

Hezbollah is a different story. Hezbollah is much more powerful than Hamas. It's believed to have 150,000 rockets. It has precision missiles that can hit specific targets in Israel. And I think. If that were to happen, Israel's response to Hezbollah would be enormous.

The Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Hezbollah is making mistakes and those who will pay the price are first and foremost Lebanon citizens. What we are doing in Gaza we can do in Beirut.

So if Israel and Hezbollah go to war, this would be the first time since 2006 that there's been a full blown conflict between them. And this time it would be more deadly, more dangerous and involve more players.

SCOTT:

Right. So as you mentioned, the last time that Hezbollah went to war with Israel was in 2006. Can you tell me about what happened back then and just how different a war would be today?

JONATHAN:

Yes. So that war was sparked in 2006 by Hezbollah, a cross-border attack into Israel in which two Israeli soldiers were captured. Israel responded with a huge military response and it eventually escalated into a full scale war that lasted 34 days.

Israel believed going into that war that it would succeed. It had at the time an inexperienced prime minister and defence minister who seemed very confident that they could easily defeat Hezbollah, push them back and restore calm across northern Israel. But it turned out that Hezbollah was much better prepared than the Israeli military appeared to expect.

In the end, it was a large scale war. It resulted in the death of more than 1100 Lebanese people, 165 Israelis, according to the Red Cross. Israel destroyed or damaged about 30,000 homes, bridges, medical facilities in Lebanon and had a huge effect on on Lebanon and its society and its economy.

In Israel, I think there was disbelief at the extent of Hezbollah's rockets. The north of Israel, including Haifa, which is one of its big cities, was basically a ghost town. Everybody had been evacuated.

At the time in 2006, it was estimated that Hezbollah had 3000 to 5000 fighters. But since then, Hezbollah's capabilities have been greatly improved. That's in large part due to Hezbollah's involvement in the war in Syria.

Audio excerpt – Speaker:

“Until recently, Hezbollah fighters were being martyred, doing battle with Israel. That is why their movement was founded. These days, though, they are fighting and dying in Syria, waging somebody else's war.”

JONATHAN:

So during the war in Syria, Hezbollah came to the aid of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Hezbollah was getting big support from Iran to do this.

And so as a result of that war, Hezbollah has come out stronger.

Today, if Hezbollah and the Israeli military were to engage in a war, it could be far more destructive than what we saw in 2006. It could cause enormous devastation in Lebanon. And Lebanon is already a country that is really teetering on the edge of social, economic and political collapse.

SCOTT:

Coming up - why the people of Lebanon have such little say in whether the war expands.

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SCOTT:

Jonathan, we've been talking about whether Hezbollah might be dragged into the Israel-Hamas war and, and how devastating it could be for the people of Lebanon, a country already on the brink of collapse. What is the domestic situation in Lebanon like at the moment?

JONATHAN:

Well, it's terrible. It has been for a long time, and it only seems to get worse there. The Syrian civil war had a devastating effect on Lebanon. It led to a mass influx of refugees. And Lebanon only has a population of about 5 million people. So this was an enormous shake up of its society and of its economy.

But more recently, in 2019, the country began to enter an economic meltdown.

Audio excerpt – Speaker:

“A tragedy is unfolding in Lebanon. Inflation has driven the country's currency to historical lows. The crash highlights a grave economic crisis that has left half the population...”

JONATHAN:

Debt had piled up. It was financial mismanagement. The World Bank said it was one of the worst economic crisis since the mid-19th century. This led to large scale protests across the country known as the October 17 Revolution.

Meanwhile, investors and donors were pulling out of the country. Banks were shutting their doors. The government defaulted on its debt and the value of its currency collapsed. I was last there just before COVID broke out. There was a real sense of crisis and despair already, then regular power failures. The refugees from the Syrian war were still there. And then you had COVID, which took another toll. And then in August 2020, there was that massive blast at the Beirut Port.

Audio excerpt – Speaker:

“The huge blast at the Port shocked right across the city destroyed many nearby buildings, blowing out windows several miles away, the investigation is now on the way.”

JONATHAN:

This added to the economic and political crisis in the country. It also symbolised, I think, especially given that corruption and mismanagement was involved in that explosion. It's symbolised really the, the dire state of Lebanon and the mismanagement that had led it there.

And so since last year, the Lebanese political system has been in gridlock. There's been a failure to agree on a new president and a new government. There's despair, really amongst the population is anger at the political class, including in Hezbollah.

So, you know, now, after decades of trying to recover from multiple wars in the past, there now fears of a new war between Israel and Hezbollah. And, you know, there could be a war that would be impossible for the country to recover from.

SCOTT:

Right, but it does seem like a decision as to whether Lebanon does become a part of the war, it’s not gonna be up to the Lebanese government or the Lebanese people, it’s in the hands of Hezbollah and Israel. So why is the country in that situation?

JONATHAN:

Yes, Well, that's been Lebanon's fate for decades now, really, that it's been subject to forces from outside. And, yes, Hezbollah is now the country's strongest political and military force. It's been described as a state within a state.

Inside Lebanon, Hezbollah has strong support from Iran. It builds civil infrastructure. It's also a major political party. It has seats in the government. And it has its own domestic agenda within Lebanon. And so Hezbollah has evolved into an important political player in Lebanon representing Lebanon's often overlooked Shia population. So Hezbollah is wary of Lebanese public opinion, which which has already turned against it significantly since 2006.

And Hezbollah is keen to maintain its special status where it has a where it where it gets to hold weapons, where it has infrastructure that is off limits to civil society. And it's sort of has this “state within a state” status. And it risks that if it embarks on a war which causes further public anger or weakens itself militarily, it could find its status within Lebanon under threat.

But what we know is that Hezbollah are also subject to outside influences, particularly the influence of Iran.

So I think it's really difficult to predict whether there will be a war between Israel and Hezbollah. But even if neither side wants that war to happen, it can still happen as a result of exactly what we're seeing now. These escalating tit for tat exchanges can easily run beyond control of either side, even if that's not really what Israel or Hezbollah want.

SCOTT:

Jonathan, thank you so much for your time.

JONATHAN:

Thanks Scott.

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SCOTT:

Also in the news today…

Independent MP’s have condemned Peter Dutton’s question time tactics, of attempting to suspend standing orders to accuse the government of equivocation in its response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Among them, Zoe Daniel said Dutton was trying to promote social division.

And…

Australia’s wage price index rose 1.3% in the last quarter, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The quarterly increase in wages was the most since the measurement began in 1997.

I’m Scott Mitchell. This is 7am. I will see you tomorrow.

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