Israel's Warning: Next War with Lebanon Won't Be Like 2006
JERUSALEM, Israel – Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. This week's visit underscores the high-stakes geopolitical chess match Netanyahu engages in to keep Israel safe.
Netanyahu took to Twitter to explain why he went to Moscow and met with Putin.
I just finished in-depth and good talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 29, 2018
I told him that Israel views two developments with utmost gravity:
First is Iran's efforts to establish a military presence in Syria pic.twitter.com/YdfcmL8DT8
"I just finished good and intensive talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I told him Israel views seriously two developments: First, Iran's attempt to establish itself militarily in Syria. The second: Iran's attempt to create in Lebanon precise weaponry to be used against Israel. I made it clear to him we won't agree to any one of these developments and we will act as needed," he said.
Netanyahu's meeting was followed by an article written by an Israeli general. Brigadier General Ronen Manelis said Iran is turning Lebanon into one big missile factory while the international community looks the other way. He warned that the people of Lebanon have become pawns in the hands of Iran.
And second is Iran's attempt to manufacture – in Lebanon – precision weapons against the State of Israel.
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 29, 2018
I made it clear to him that we will not agree to either one of these developments and will act according to need.
He wrote, "The ordinary citizen will be mistaken to think that this process turns Lebanon into a fortress; it is nothing more than a barrel of gunpowder on which he, his family and his property are sitting. One in every three or four houses in southern Lebanon is a headquarters, a post, a weapons depot or a Hezbollah hideout. We know these assets and know how to attack them accurately if required."
Jonathan Spyer, author of "Days of the Fall: a Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars," told CBN News Lebanon no longer controls its own destiny.
"Right now, you know, Lebanon is effectively a fully owned franchise of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Spyer said.
"What it confirms is the extent to which today Hezbollah and the other clients of Iran have effectively swallowed up Lebanon – that's to say, from originally constituting a kind of state within a state in Lebanon, they have now, as of recent months, effectively swallowed up the real state," he explained.
The general's article is just one of the latest warnings by Israel that the next war with Hezbollah will not be like the last one.
"It won't be like it was in 2006, a little kind of border skirmish, or series of skirmishes, between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah," Manelis wrote. "No. This will have the dimensions of a state-to-state conflict. From Israel's point of view, Hezbollah and Lebanon to them are the same thing, and if war comes again, therefore, it will be a war between the State of Israel and the state of Lebanon this time around," he said.
It remains to be seen if Lebanon, Russia and the international community will heed the warnings by Israel.
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