Israel’s unwinnable wars: The path to de-escalation in the Middle East

After almost a year of raging war in Gaza, the conflict in the Middle East is rapidly widening and Western diplomatic efforts continue to fall short. Over the last week, Israel launched an unprecedented campaign of strikes across Lebanon, dealing a series of powerful military blows to Lebanon’s Hizbullah group. Despite these tactical wins, Israel still lacks a strategy to end Hizbullah’s attacks on the north of the country, which the group says are a direct response to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Rather, Israel’s military actions are fuelling a disastrous conflict in Lebanon which has no viable diplomatic off-ramp.

The United States and France are now pushing a new initiative to secure a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon but Israel has already rejected this approach and its military strikes continue unabated. Unless the West can also deliver a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, there is little prospect of sustainable peace along Israel’s northern border. Rather, regional conflict will continue and Hizbullah, even in its wounded position, will likely eventually launch a more sustained military response against Israel, possibly with Iranian support. This could sink the two countries and the wider region into a prolonged deadly conflict.

The US and European governments have long been missing in action, acquiescing to Israel’s escalation and doing too little to press Israel to accept a Gaza ceasefire deal. They now face the prospect of an impending full-blown conflict in the Middle East unless they are finally willing to exert meaningful pressure on Israel to agree to ceasefires in both Lebanon and Gaza. Even though the risk of a wider war has never been higher, diplomatic openings to push Israel towards de-escalation across the board remain.

Escalation through escalation

Hizbullah has been badly mauled by Israel. An unprecedent Israeli operation to blow up thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the group, killed dozens of members and wounded thousands more. Meanwhile, an unrelenting wave of assassinations has killed a number of top military leaders. The group has also lost significant missile supplies in Israel’s air campaign. Israel’s actions have come with a growing toll on Lebanese civilians, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands displaced .

Hizbullah has responded by expanding its missile and drone strikes deeper into Israel, but these strikes have been restrained given its estimated arsenal of 150,000 missiles and potential to wreak extensive destruction on Israel. While this may in part be due to its own losses, Hizbullah has long wanted to avoid a full-scale war against Israel given the extensive cost this would inflict on the group and Lebanon. This dynamic gives Israel the upper hand, as it is far more willing to escalate given its belief that Hizbullah is unwilling to respond in kind. This is evident on the ground, where Israel has launched five times more strikes than Hizbullah since 7 October.

The Israeli hope is that its strategy of “de-escalation through escalation” will compel Hizbullah to abandon its long-standing demand for a ceasefire in Gaza as a pre-condition for ending its attacks on Israel and to move its forces away from the Israeli border (in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701). Israel will likely demand these objectives as a pre-condition for any future Lebanon ceasefire.

In reality, neither Israel’s military campaign nor a Lebanon-only ceasefire will secure these goals. Any decision from Hizbullah to withdraw its forces from the border areas and end support for Hamas would cement a perception of its weakness, potentially exposing it and its allies, including Iran, to broader Israeli military action. A ceasefire in Gaza is the necessary off ramp for Hizbullah to stand down.

Even if a temporary pause can eventually be secured, without progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza, Hizbullah’s confrontation with Israel will ultimately continue. This could lead Israel to launch a ground offensive into southern Lebanon with the aim of setting up a buffer zone along the border. But this step is unlikely to succeed given the extended range of Hizbullah’s arsenal and will only strengthen the group’s willingness to fight back.

Israeli forces could quickly find themselves bogged down, fighting a protracted insurgency with an increasingly overstretched force that is already fighting in Gaza and in the West Bank. Furthermore, ongoing Israeli escalation in Lebanon will eventually force Hizbullah to step up its own counter attacks to demonstrate the credibility of its deterrence capacity. In recent days, it already deployed more powerful weapons systems with greater range, including reportedly targeting Mossad’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The Iran factor

While Iran has signalled its desire to avoid a direct confrontation against Israel, it may also eventually feel compelled to step up its military support for Hizbullah, which lies at the heart of Iran’s deterrence strategy against both Israel and the US. Tehran is unlikely to accept the decimation of its main regional partner and could be sucked into an expanding and unchecked war – especially given ongoing Israeli strikes against Iranian facilities and IRGC personnel in Syria. Greater Iranian involvement in support of Hizbullah would risk provoking a direct confrontation with Israel and potentially draw in the US, whose forces have been regularly targeted by pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Iraq. This would be a nightmare scenario for Europeans given the deeply destabilising impact it would have across the entire Middle East.

Iran’s weakening ability to depend on its regional allies to deter Israel may encourage its leadership to seek an alternative means of deterrence, including a new push to acquire a nuclear weapon. This would undermine recent diplomatic signs that newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian could be seeking to resume negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The only diplomatic off-ramp

This outcome is in many respects the consequence of the Israeli government’s political decisions, in particular its unwillingness to enter into a Gaza ceasefire that all sides – including the US, Israel’s key backer – say is ready to be finalised. This should not downplay the destabilising actions of Hizbullah and its Iranian patron, nor minimise the security threats faced by Israel on its northern border. But it does reflect the reality that current escalatory dynamics are being driven by the Israeli government.

It is high time for Europeans to acknowledge the cost of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s obstructionism, which risks a catastrophic broader conflict. A ceasefire in Gaza remains the only viable diplomatic path to sustainably end the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah and for the estimated 60,000 displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north of the country.

The worst-case outcome is not inevitable, but it will require an urgent course correction to be averted. European countries and the US must urgently press Israel to end its attacks on Lebanon and agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Sustained calm could then serve as a basis for meaningful negotiations to address tensions between Israel and Hizbullah.

From a European standpoint, this approach should include ending arms sales to Israel and reviewing the EU’s Association Agreement with the country – the lynchpin of their bilateral relations and a key source of economic leverage. But Europeans also need to do more to press the US to use its military leverage over Netanyahu. While President Joe Biden has so far been unwilling to go down this path, European governments should work closely with Arab states – particularly Gulf monarchies which wield important political influence in Washington and are deeply worried about the destabilising impact of a wider war – to press for a much-needed change of US position before it is too late.