The Lebanese people are celebrating the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.Image: EPA
Analyse
How Israel tilted the balance of power in its favor in the Middle East and what the consequences will be. Analysis.
Thomas Seibert, Istanbul / ch media
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Cars honking, Hezbollah flags, gunfire in the air: supporters of the Shiite militia in Lebanon are celebrating the ceasefire in the war against Israel as a victory. Hezbollah announced that resistance against Israel would continue. Iran praised the militia for destroying “the myth of Israeli invincibility.” This propaganda conceals part of the reality: the obvious defeat of Hezbollah and Iran in a war which shifted the balance of power in the Middle East in favor of Israel.
Hezbollah and Iran recall that under the ceasefire agreements, Israel must withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to admit that his army needed to breathe a little. Hezbollah therefore celebrates itself as the protector of Lebanese sovereignty. A bit like it did after the last war against Israel in 2006.
However, there are important differences between the past and the current situation. The paramilitary group emerged from the war unscathed 18 years ago. This time it lost its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, most of its commanders and much of its weapons. Even with tens of thousands of missiles, the militia failed to defeat Israel.
Israeli secret service Mossad infiltrated Hezbollah and blew up thousands of the group’s radio receivers. A debate is now underway in Lebanon to find out if the State can free itself from the tutelage of Hezbollah.
Kristof Kleemann, project manager of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Jerusalem and former director of the Foundation’s office in Beirut, says:
“Of course, Hezbollah celebrates the ceasefire as a victory”
And continues: “This was to be expected, but it has little to do with reality,” says Kleemann. According to him, Hezbollah lost its deterrent force and the support of the Lebanese population. In short, the strategic weight of the region has changed sides.
Military inferiority and serious errors of assessment
This shift is the consequence of Israeli superiority, but also of the bad calculations of Hezbollah and the Iranian leaders. When the paramilitary group began firing its rockets into Israel after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, in support of Hamas, the militia and its Iranian patron believed the conflict would remain limited.
Hezbollah expected to be able to impose a suspension of fighting in Gaza, in collaboration with Iran and the Houthis in Yemen, also supported by Iran, concludes Joshua Landis, Middle East specialist at the University of American state of Oklahoma. But this turned out to be a fatal mistake. Israel not only retaliated, but attacked with force which Hezbollah and Iran did not expect.
Until Hamas’s attack on Israel, the conflict – between Israel on the one hand and Iran and its allies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis on the other – followed fixed rules, even if they did not ‘were not written. One of them was that the conflict should not degenerate into war.
Following the sad October 7, Israel put an end to this by killing Nasrallah in Beirut, Iranian commanders in Syria and Hamas leader Ismail Hanijah in Tehran. Israeli warplanes bombed the hideouts of Hezbollah leaders without regard for civilian casualties. Despite everything, the United States and Europe maintained their support.
An outcome in the form of a hard blow
The new rules of the conflict in the Middle East are now dictated by Israel, as shown by the agreement on the ceasefire in Lebanon. Hezbollah had to abandon its main objective, which was to only end the war in Lebanon if the fighting in Gaza stopped at the same time. The ultimate arbiter in monitoring the ceasefire is the United States, Israel’s closest ally and Iran’s archenemy.
The outcome of the war between Hezbollah and Israel is also a hard blow for Tehran. The Islamic Republic can no longer count on Hezbollah – until further notice – as an Iranian outpost on the Israeli border. It lost credibility with its allies in Iraq, Yemen and Syria by not coming to the aid of Hezbollah.
Even the recent Israeli attack on Iranian territory has not yet been the subject of a response from Iran, despite numerous announcements, because it fears a devastating response from Israel and America. Hezbollah and Iran have lost more than a war in 2024.
Translated and adapted from German by Léon Dietrich
