Israeli Terror Attacks on Lebanon Presages All Out War in the Middle East

29-09-2024: On September 17 thousands of pagers exploded in Lebanon, taking the lives of 12 people and wounding thousands of Hezbollah operatives. At least 20 people were killed the next day when walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.[1] While Israeli government officials have remained silent on the intelligence operation, it is inconceivable that these attacks could have been carried out by anyone else. The involvement of Israel’s secretive Unit 8200 is strongly suspected. Since then Hezbollah and the Israeli state have exchanged fire, after a week of Israeli attacks on Lebanon that killed some of Hezbollah’s commanders. On the 21^st of September, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) pummelled southern Lebanon with strikes on 400 targets. The next day Hezbollah launched missiles on northern Israel, setting off alarms, but reports say they resulted in only minor injuries.[2] At last report, subsequent IDF strikes on Lebanon have killed 490 people, including more than 90 women and children, in the deadliest battles since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.[3]

Terror Attacks

The Middle East is on the brink of all out war. As if on cue, the US (United States of America) government announced it was sending “a small number” of extra troops to the region in response to the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. There are already 40 000 US troops in the region,[4] and have been building since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7 last year. If terrorism is defined as the taking of innocent lives for political aims, the IDF pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Lebanon are the very definition of terrorism. Innocent Lebanese people were killed in these strikes, potentially family and friends of Hezbollah members, who are an integral part of Lebanese society. This is the case even as it is also true that Israel was targeted by mass terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023. However, there is evidence that the IDF and the highest levels of the Israel state had known, for up to one year before the event,[5] that Hamas was planning to conduct this assault.

Both the Israeli state and its Hamas creation are ultimately proxy forces of US and EU (European Union) led imperialism. Arguably, the aim of October 7 and the ensuing conflict was to draw Iran into a regime change war, with one aim being to distract from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) definitively losing its proxy war in Ukraine against the Russian Federation. The recent IDF terrorist attacks on Lebanon also fit into this picture. The continual provocations of the Israeli state appear to be part of an effort to draw the US, the UK (United Kingdom) and France into a catastrophic war on the Islamic Republic of Iran, its nemesis. Yet the collective Western powers are not in a fit state to fund and arm a regime change war on Iran, as desperately as they desire it. They are militarily exhausted in Ukraine and are not in a position to inflame separatist forces in Taiwan against mainland China.

Axis of Resistance

Hezbollah (which translates as “Party of God”) is a Shia Islamist national defence force, and also a political party. Although deemed by some Western governments to be a terrorist organisation, it does not take innocent lives and has fought and defeated the IDF several times. It gained widespread domestic support for forcing the IDF out of Lebanon in 2000 and fought a five week war with the IDF in 2006.[6] These actions garnered support outside its Shia base, with many Christrian, Druze and Sunni Muslim sections of society applauding its heroism. Hezbollah is said to have over 100 000 fighters and has in its possession some 150 000 missiles and rockets.[7] Hezbollah played a strong role in the US led war of regime change on Syria, intervening to assist Syria[8] alongside other invited allies such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), Iraqi militia and Russia. Hezbollah correctly assessed that if US imperialism was able to overthrow Syria, neighbouring Lebanon would itself be overrun with Western funded ISIS and Al Qaeda barbarians.

Hezbollah is a central part of the Axis of Resistance, a Shia alliance of national resistance forces mainly coordinated by the IRGC. The Axis of Resistance has the clear aim of defending the region from the regular onslaught of Western imperialism, mainly that of the US military. This is the reason why working people internationally can offer Hezbollah military support in their battles to defend Lebanon and the Middle East, while political support is another matter. Others in the Axis of Resistance include IRGC aligned Shia resistance forces in Iraq, including Kataib Hezbollah and the Hashid Shaabi (or Popular Mobilisation Forces). It includes the Ansar Allah forces (Houthis) in Yemen,[9] which has been targeting, and sometimes destroying, US and UK shipping attempting to reach Israel through the Red Sea. The US troops still occupying parts of Syria are thus potentially under constant threat from various Shia militias as part of the Axis of Resistance, which places another barrier in its plans to use this base to defend the Israeli state, and to use Israel as a proxy force in the region.

Some liberals in the West mistakenly assume that Hamas is a part of the Axis of Resistance, but Hamas has its origins in the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.[10] The Muslim Brotherhood is often used by imperialism as a proxy force, given its fanatical opposition to any secular political establishments, and Hamas is no exception. The Qatari monarchy sent millions to Hamas for years, with the open backing of the Israeli state.[11] The Israeli government has for years propped up Hamas as a bulwark against a secular opposition forming in Palestine. Despite this, it is unfortunately the case that the Iranian government gives Hamas some political, diplomatic and even material support.[12] This is an error, as it demonstrates in the negative, that political Islam does not offer a genuine opposition to capitalist imperialism. Through various means, the deep states of US and European imperialism ensure Hamas maintains an ability to operate, which allows the Israeli state to “justify” a state of perpetual war. This cycle of violence reverberates back on Iran, Syria and other parts of the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East. Working people of the entire region therefore struggle to ensure a life without conflict.

One front of a global war

Working people can understandably be overwhelmed by seemingly endless conflict in the Middle East, and struggle to see a way forward. Yet the conflict in the Middle East must be seen as but one front in a global war of capitalist imperialism against those who seek to preserve a shred of independence. The Israeli/US war on Palestine and Lebanon is a war against Iran, which is part of the war against Russia (via Ukraine) and the war against China (via Taiwan). Iran, Russia and China are the central allies of the BRICS alliance, which is a non-imperialist bloc offering a vitally needed alternative to centuries of Western domination and plunder. The current members of BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Over 40 nations of the “Global South” – or the global majority – are eager to join the BRICS[13] to finally escape Western economic and often political and military subjugation. Within weeks, the BRICS bloc will conduct its most important summit ever in Kazan, Russia. While there are many political contradictions between the BRICS governments, the syndicate is anchored by the gargantuan industrial, scientific and technological power of the socialistic People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The inevitable response of Washington and Brussels is a hybrid war on many fronts. Working people internationally need to take action to defend Lebanon, but not in isolation from the international geopolitical situation. This is the major shortcoming, amongst others, of the “Free Palestine” movement which has swept through many Western countries since October 7. This movement has sought to defend Palestine in a vacuum, as if it is not connected to the Middle East (even their nearest neighbours!), and as if it is not also part of the West’s war on Iran, Russia and China. While national borders are of course not irrelevant, it has been locked in a thoroughly nationalist outlook that offers only lobbying on the one hand, or all out military war on the other hand. There needs to be a military defence of Palestine and of Lebanon against Israeli state attacks, which is one reason working people internationally can offer Hezbollah military support in its defence of Lebanon against Israeli state bombardment, which is ultimately acting on the orders of the US deep state.

There is no doubt that many Hezbollah fighters bravely and selflessly give their lives defending the region against US led imperialism via Israel. They have defeated or helped to defeat these invasions several times, as well as in Syria. At the same time, both the Islamist nationalism of Hezbollah, and the liberal nationalism of the “Free Palestine” movement in the West are obstacles to be overcome. The working classes of Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Syria and others need to be united in a socialist federation of the Middle East. This offers the possibility for a permanent end to needless conflict. While the Axis of Resistance (the states of Iran and Syria, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, Kataib Hezbollah and others) heroically defends the region against US imperialism, it does not seek to uproot it.

Workers internationally need to demand a complete end to weapons shipments to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. This needs to be linked to measures to counter the drastic cost of living crisis hitting working people in the West, i.e., the direct linking of the war abroad with the war at home. The dearth of leadership for a world at war must be filled by internationally linked Leninist vanguard parties, which can tactically orient to rising non-imperialist forces while providing a critically needed pro-working class perspective. The West’s non-stop wars must be turned against the global elite ruling classes and their agents, in a progressive march forward towards common prosperity.

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[1] www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-pager-attack-puts-spotlight-on-israels-cyber-warfare-unit-8200 (25-09-2024)

[2] www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/21/world/gaza-israel-hamas-hezbollah (25-09-2024)

[3] https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-lebanon-hezbollah-e3ca9c83642056f962fdf76319e3b8de (25-09-2024)

[4] www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/09/23/us-sends-troops-israel-lebanon-war-hezbollah/75349472007/ (25-09-2024)

[5] www.lemonde.fr/en/israel-palestine/article/2023/12/01/new-york-times-investigation-reports-israel-knew-about-hamas-october-7-attack-plan_6305821_139.html (25-09-2024)

[6] www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2024/09/24/what-is-hizbullahs-position-and-influence-in-lebanon/ (25-09-2024)

[7] www.globalresearch.ca/war-scenario-between-israel-hezbollah/5704925 (25-09-2024)

[8] www.understandingwar.org/report/hezbollah-syria (25-09-2024)

[9] www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/what-is-iran-s-axis-of-resistance-which-groups-are-involved (25-09-2024)