The two assassinations (Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Fouad Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut) opened wide the doors of the Middle East. Whoever took the decision to liquidate them has also decided to push the conflict, which has been going on since October 7, 2023, towards an end or a resolution.
The decisiveness in his strategy (i.e. Netanyahu) is no longer linked to his war on Gaza, or his attempts to eliminate the Palestinian cause. Rather, he is pushing everyone towards a regional resolution that refuses to end with the establishment of a Palestinian state, or a relative win-win situation - a settlement that leads to disengagement and moving to new rules of conflict.
On both parties’ path towards achieving victory or imposing new rules for the conflict, they inevitably surpassed the equation of response and reaction to the response, or even adherence to what were called the rules of engagement. One of them has actually moved the confrontation towards the possibility of a comprehensive regional war without strategic controls or geographical borders.
Before the double operation in Beirut and Tehran, the region and the world were trying to contain the repercussions of an Israeli retaliatory strike against Lebanon after the Majdal Shams incident. International decision-makers were emphasizing the need to control the reaction without focusing on its size, along with promises and commitments to neutralize Beirut and Tel Aviv from any reaction.
However, what happened within hours raised speculation from the possibility of expanding the scope of the confrontation to a potential all-out war in Lebanon that would be a pretext for a comprehensive regional conflict.
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has turned a deaf ear to the world. He did not respond to the calls to observe the minimum requirements in Gaza, and deceived everyone who had negotiated with him before his retaliatory response. He started his war from a principle he promised to adhere to, which he later dishonored, raiding Beirut’s southern suburb, and hours later, Tehran, in a double message that everything is possible.
Everything is possible or permissible in Netanyahu’s mind. His reaction was not surprising. But what was shocking was that those concerned with the confrontation did not take into account remarks by a high-ranking European security figure who had visited Tel Aviv in the first month of the Israeli war on the Palestinian people, and moved from there to other regional capitals, including Beirut.
He conveyed to those he met in these capitals what he literally described as “Israeli madness.” In Beirut specifically, he said that he found nothing but “crazy people” who showed him a map of targets starting from southern Lebanon and ending in its north, and intentions of aggression when the opportunity arises to make Lebanese cities look like the areas of the Gaza Strip that were being leveled to the ground.
He explained in his answers to the Lebanese that Tel Aviv made its decision to launch a long and destructive war, regardless of its internal cost and external repercussions.
A similar position was conveyed by the US special envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, during his recent visit to Beirut. Hochstein, who failed to convince the Lebanese to dissociate the southern front from the war in Gaza, spoke briefly to those he visited about the possibility of sliding into all-out war, and into an error in assessments that would kill civilians, especially children, which might lead to a comprehensive change in the conflict.
It was clear from the second day of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation that Tehran and Washington did not want to expand the confrontation, and that Tehran was able to control its factions. But Washington, which was confused and preoccupied with the elections, was not able from the first day of the war to tame Netanyahu, as he exploited any opportunity or mistake in order to push the region towards war, and continues now to practice the utmost types of luring and embarrassment.
Politically, the first Israeli position after the assassination of Fouad Shukur was closer to offering a settlement similar to the one which followed the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani, and limiting the Iranian response to the US Ain al-Assad base in Iraq, which spared Tehran a harsh confrontation with Washington.
This does not seem acceptable to Hezbollah and the Axis powers, especially since Iran cannot ignore the assassination of the leader of the Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, on its territory, and is obliged to respond. Will the response be similar to the reaction to the attack on its consulate in Damascus? Will Hezbollah be satisfied with expanding the southern front in quantity and quality, or has Tel Aviv become a legitimate target?
