The Rising Risk of a New Forever War

The immediate jubilation among Israelis over the airstrike that killed the longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday is premature. Israel’s dramatic escalation in its conflict with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, poses a serious risk of embroiling both Israel and the United States in a costly forever war — an outcome that will bring neither stability nor peace to Israel or the Middle East.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah has been dealt a series of severe blows in recent months. Israel has killed at least four of its top commanders, including Mr. Nasrallah, in addition to the carefully planned pager and walkie-talkie attacks on its rank-and-file members this month. But eliminating Hezbollah as a threat to Israel cannot be achieved through military means alone. And far from ensuring the safe return of Israel’s roughly 60,000 citizens displaced from their homes in the north of the country — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated goal for the current escalation — this path may only harden the resolve of Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of supporters in Lebanon and beyond.

As satisfying as Mr. Nasrallah’s assassination may feel to those seeking Hezbollah’s destruction, his death is unlikely to paralyze the group for long. Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah’s predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992, and senior commander, Imad Mughniyeh, in 2008. Hezbollah not only survived but also grew in strength. It’s hard to see why this time would be different. Mr. Nasrallah’s second-in-command, Hashem Safieddine, a clerk and a cousin of the deceased leader who shared his worldview, may already have stepped in as the new de facto head of the organization.

What Israel has repeatedly underestimated is Hezbollah’s “asabiyya,” or social solidarity, its political will and its resilience. Hezbollah is a deeply institutionalized organization that is embedded in the social and political fabric of Lebanon. It has set up a vast welfare system that provides food and services to communities across Lebanon. It has 13 elected lawmakers in parliament and powerful allies in the country’s security forces. Its Shia-dominant ideology is also steeped in an ethos of victimhood, sacrifice and martyrdom, insulating it against loss and demoralization. Since Hezbollah’s establishment in the early 1980s, the group has weathered the loss of not only its highest leaders but also thousands of combatants.

As the United States learned in both Afghanistan and Iraq, defeating a committed insurgency or resistance movement is almost impossible. As a nonstate paramilitary organization, Hezbollah can continue to use asymmetrical warfare to its own advantage, waging a sustained guerrilla campaign that prevents Israel from returning residents of the north safely to their homes.

If Israel is under the illusion it can weaken Hezbollah as effectively as it has Hamas, it is wrong. Hezbollah is estimated to have up to 50,000 armed combatants; in 2021, Mr. Nasrallah boasted that the group had 100,000 trained fighters, though that claim is difficult to verify. Though it may take time for the group to recuperate, its forces far exceed the number of Hamas fighters and other Iran-backed militias in the region. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles in its stockpile, including guided ballistic missiles.

And unlike blockaded Gaza, Lebanon has open borders with Syria, which could enable Iran to more easily replenish Hezbollah’s arsenal and allow it to wage a prolonged war. (This is presumably part of the reason Iran helped save the Bashar al-Assad regime during its civil war.) Even if Iran does not directly come to Hezbollah’s aid, the country’s Revolutionary Guards may be able to activate its so-called axis of resistance, weakened as it may be, and coordinate for skilled fighters from Syria, Iraq and Yemen to help out in Lebanon.

As a result, Hezbollah, as a fighting force, is positioned to survive even the most sustained Israeli air assault. Any “total victory” against Hezbollah would require Israel to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon — which there are signs Israel’s military is now preparing to do — and engage in a prolonged occupation of at least parts of south Lebanon. This would not only lead to severe losses among Israel’s own soldiers but would also have catastrophic consequences for Lebanon’s civilian population.

And in the end there would still be no guarantee of long-term security for Israel, as history has demonstrated again and again. In June 1982, Israel invaded and occupied parts of Lebanon, including, for a brief time, Beirut, for the next 18 years. The occupation proved to be a strategic failure, giving rise to Hezbollah and leading to the deaths of thousands of civilians. Hezbollah’s guerrilla warfare forced Israel to withdraw in 2000. The same pattern played out to a more limited degree when Israel sent forces into Lebanon again in 2006, resulting in more than 100 Israeli casualties.

The “total victory” that Mr. Netanyahu and his cabinet are seeking over Hezbollah will not bring the absolute security that Israelis want and need. Whenever Israel decides to stop its military campaign, what will remain are millions of traumatized Arabs who have watched their brothers and sisters in Palestine and Lebanon be slaughtered with gruesome impunity. These feelings won’t easily subside.

If unresolved, the underlying conditions that gave rise to the current conflict — the Israeli government’s subjugation of Palestinians and denial of an independent Palestinian state — will only foster the conditions for further conflict. Under such circumstances, Israel will be continually confronted with hardened fighters who have been radicalized by the suffering it has imposed.

The only way to avoid greater catastrophe and circumstances that could pull the region into a yearslong war — and the United States more directly into the bloodshed — is for Israel to immediately de-escalate militarily in Lebanon and obtain a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. For now, that looks like an elusive goal: Despite repeated calls by the families of the Israeli hostages in Gaza and a large segment of the Israeli public for a cease-fire, Mr. Netanyahu has so far refused to agree to one, as has Hamas.

Nevertheless, it is the only way forward. Israel’s hubris in its attacks on Lebanon has been enabled by America’s “ironclad” military support and diplomatic cover for its ally. In this regard, the United States has not been a true friend to Israel. Israel will not know lasting peace until it recognizes that its long-term security depends on reconciliation with the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Its leaders must find a political compromise that will finally allow Israel to be fully integrated into the region. Top-down normalization with Arab autocrats is not enough.

The key to stopping the decades-long cycle of bloodshed and the circumstances that have allowed Iranian influence to grow is the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the granting of Palestinian self-determination.

Fawaz A. Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, is the author of “What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East.”

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