'Hezbollah problem too big to solve': In Middle East 'we don't solve problems, we try & gain time'

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00I'm pleased to welcome to the programme live now Charles Freilich. He is a former Israeli

00:05Deputy National Security Advisor and he's the author of Israeli National Security,

00:10a new strategy for an era of change. Welcome to you. Thanks for joining us.

00:16Thank you. And a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

00:21Pleasure to have you on the programme. How significant is it that Hezbollah attempted

00:27to hit Tel Aviv today, even though the rocket was shot down and no damage was incurred?

00:33Well, it's a further escalation. It's a step up. It's not that Tel Aviv is or the lives of people

00:40in Tel Aviv are more important than those of the people in the north. But the fact is it's

00:45hitting Israel's biggest city, the overall the largest population centre, the central of the

00:51country. And it's a step up, but it was only one rocket and fortunately it was intercepted.

00:58I think I would take a little bit of exception to the way that you originally presented the

01:07situation at the beginning of the broadcast. I understand that people want to see the human

01:15aspect and human costs. But the story here isn't really the civilian costs on either side of the

01:24border. The real story is that there is a brilliant operation underway in which a terrorist

01:33organisation which took an entire country, Lebanon, hostage and has been building up its forces now

01:41for years and years, has been hit very, very hard with remarkable accuracy. The story isn't the

01:48occasional misfire. It's the fact that in essence, all of the attacks have been pinpointed. They've

01:55been successful. You're interviewing people who in many cases have an interest in presenting a

02:01false picture. The fact is almost every home in southern Lebanon, I'm just slightly overstating

02:07the case, almost every home in southern Lebanon was actually a Hezbollah target. People had

02:17rockets in their homes. Some of them you can hide in the kitchen cabinet, others hid in other places.

02:23And they've been preparing for this for years and they were hit with dramatic success, pinpointed

02:29success. Well, just a word on the figures. One thing we do know, according to the Lebanese

02:35health ministry, is that there are 50 children among the dead. Now, as to Israel's strategy right

02:44now, we know the Israeli government wants to try and enable the return of Israeli citizens to their

02:50homes in the north. Hezbollah, of course, though, has significant firepower. Can the group really be

02:56defeated now with Israeli airstrikes alone? So first of all, let me just add one more sentence.

03:03So maybe 52 children, but who is responsible for the children being in homes in which there

03:09were rockets? I don't think the objective here is to defeat Hezbollah. That's probably a bridge too

03:19far. The objective here is to downgrade them significantly, and that's already been partly

03:24achieved. And the other objective is to move them out of southern Lebanon, maybe to the Litani River,

03:31so that their short range rocket arsenal, which is the overwhelming majority of the something like

03:37150,000 rockets, are out of range. That doesn't solve the problem of the mid and the long range

03:42rockets, but those numbers are much smaller, and that makes the military operation more achievable.

03:50But again, the objective is to degrade them and force a ceasefire, because in the end,

03:56this could have to end diplomatically, force a ceasefire on better terms for Israel to let

04:03the people in the north go back home to their homes. As I mentioned a little bit earlier on,

04:09today Israel announced it's calling up two extra reserve brigades to the north of Israel.

04:16Is that a sign to you that potentially a ground invasion of Lebanon is on the cards now?

04:22Well, I think it's certainly in the cards. That's not the only sign.

04:28At this point, I don't know that there is a decision to launch a ground operation. I

04:32wouldn't be surprised, because that may be one of the things that has to be done to move Hezbollah

04:36out of the south. That still doesn't necessarily have to be, have to turn into an all out war.

04:44That will depend on Hezbollah's response. And yeah, it could go in that direction.

04:49Isn't there a risk here that even if Hezbollah is badly degraded, its military capability is

04:58degraded here, that it actually won't necessarily destroy support for the group? It could grow,

05:04couldn't it? It grew after the war in 2006. And then in time, Hezbollah will build up its arsenal

05:10again and will be able to strike Israel again. Well, unfortunately, history in the Middle East

05:17is such that we don't solve problems. We try and gain time until the next round. And I think

05:25that's probably the case here. No one thinks we can solve the Hezbollah problem. It's too big.

05:31I don't think it will gain support. I think it's just the opposite. The Lebanese public,

05:37as opposed to Hezbollah, I don't think wants this war. They were hit very, very badly in the war in

05:442006. And they understand that if this really escalates, then the damage, I would say the

05:51devastation in Lebanon will be far greater than then. So they don't want this. It doesn't build

05:57up support for them. There may be a short term rallying around the flag phenomenon among the

06:02Shiite population, but I don't think we've seen that among the rest of the population.

06:07And again, I think people will be quite concerned when this escalates beyond. But you have to,

06:14again, to put this in context, imagine if someone on one of France's borders

06:22started firing thousands and thousands of rockets into France, including Paris.

06:28What would France do about this? What would any country do about this? So what Israel is doing

06:33is not a war of aggression. It is a war of defense. And to some extent, at least,

06:40it is absolutely necessary. You can argue how much Israel should do, how it should do it.

06:45But in and of itself, I think it's an absolutely necessary operation or even war.

06:51You talk about it being a necessary war of defense. And I want to talk about Gaza as well,

06:56then, if I can. The death toll from Gaza, over 41,000 lives. Does Israel have the resources

07:02to fight a war on two fronts now? Well, I think people don't quite

07:07understand the war in Gaza, war writ large, ended in January. Since then, we've had two major

07:16operations, one in Khan Yunis, one in Rafah. And that was a spike in each occasion. But basically,

07:23it's been low level hostilities since January. And the number of Israeli troops in Gaza is very,

07:30very small, and has now decreased even more because last week, an entire division

07:35was moved to the north. So if you ask me, does Israel have the military capacity,

07:39the answer is certainly yes. The problem is different. The problem is that the reservists,

07:44many of them have done a half a year of duty, in some cases even more, away from families,

07:50away from their places of employment. That's the real problem, not the ability to fight on both

07:56fronts. People will, if the war really erupts, people will show up. I have no doubt about that.

08:02There will be a socioeconomic cost after the war is over.

08:06Just a final question for you, then. Iran, of course, the key backer of Hezbollah. Do you

08:12think the country is going to get directly involved now?

08:17Well, I think the Iranians have shown just by virtue of their behaviour since October 7th,

08:22that they don't want to get involved in a direct war of their own for the most part.

08:27Actually, one of Hamas' biggest objectives on October 7th was to draw the entire axis of

08:33resistance into the war at their side. They thought if that was the case,

08:37they could take what was already a devastating blow for Israel into a knockout blow potentially.

08:42Hezbollah did get involved on a, let's say, a mid-level of hostilities. But Iran has stayed

08:48out consistently with one exception, which was April 13th, and that was in response to

08:53an Israeli attack against an Iranian position in Damascus. It wasn't related to Gaza.

09:00So does this now, the recent events, the escalation in Lebanon, does that

09:05pose an additional problem or challenge for Iran and maybe another reason to get involved? The

09:10answer is yes. But on the other hand, they don't seem to want to get involved directly

09:15in a big way. I doubt that will change.

09:18Charles Freilich, it's been good to talk to you. Thanks very much.

Category

Transcript

Recommended