A hot summer in Israel

If this past week is any indication of what’s to come, Israel could be in for some serious heat this summer. Iran is well on its way to developing a nuclear program, the international community is taking aim at Israel’s ambiguous approach to its own nuclear weapons, and Israel promptly lost what was, in all fairness, a no-win situation when it confronted a humanitarian flotilla steaming toward the blockaded Gaza. On top of these issues, the most worrying near-term risk is on the Lebanon and Syria front.

Since April, the Israeli government has been saying that Syria is supplying Hezbollah with scud missiles provided by Iran. The rhetoric flared last week, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hezbollah is now operating the scuds out of Syrian territory. If true, this situation would be a real game changer for Hezbollah — given that the scuds could reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, creating a very different threat level than the group has ever posed before.

The Israelis have responded by ramping up the diplomatic pressure, publicly castigating Lebanon and Syria, and launching overflights of Lebanon. In the past week, the Israelis also launched a 5-day nationwide military-readiness exercise, publicly insisting it had nothing to do with the crisis (but predictably causing hysterics among Israel’s neighbors). Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was sufficiently worried that he hopped a plane to meet with President Obama for urgent discussions. Obama’s reaction wasn’t quite what Hariri expected, though, as the U.S. president used the meeting to scold him for weapons transfers, which violate U.N. Security Council resolutions passed after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

While reliable Israeli reporters privately confirm the scud shipments, U.S. sources only confirm a broad increase in recent Hezbollah arming. But it’s certain that there is a relevant political shift taking place in Beirut. Hariri was initially cool to Hezbollah and the Syrian government, but that’s changed in the past year, with Hariri entering into a coalition government with Hezbollah and publicly aligning with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Hariri originally denied the Israeli scud claims, comparing them to U.S. claims about weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war, but lately he’s been silent on the issue.

It’s an extremely volatile situation. The Israeli government could decide that the scuds are intolerable and try to take them out, triggering a wider conflict with Lebanon and Syria. And if there’s a war, it’s likely to be much more violent than what took place in 2006. Israel’s government today is more hard-line on national security matters, and it will be more determined to dismantle Hezbollah so that it won’t be able to come back as quickly.

For its part, Hezbollah has little reason to provoke another conflict with Israel. The militia doesn’t want to be blamed for destroying Lebanon. What’s more, the extent of Israeli attacks on Gaza, and Israel’s evident willingness to ignore global public opinion, have made the dangers of provocation very real. But it’s possible that Hezbollah could miscalculate and take some smaller action that triggers a war. After all, that’s what started the last conflict. In retrospect, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah admitted that he wouldn’t have kidnapped Israeli soldiers if he’d known how Israel would respond. In June 2006, most experts would have said that they thought a war was unlikely, but a month later there was fighting. We’re in a similar position today.