Israel faces several grave decisions in the coming weeks — what to do in Gaza after the fighting in Rafah concludes, how to balance the campaign against Hamas with the quest to free the hostages, whether to move decisively toward normalization with Saudi Arabia. But Israel’s most fateful choice is whether to pivot from one war, against Hamas, to another, against Hezbollah. That simmering conflict is approaching a moment for decision. The best way for President Joe Biden to head off a devastating Israeli war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is to demonstrate that he will back Israel to the hilt.
I spent last week in Israel with a group of US and European academics. Even as combat in Rafah rages, the crisis on Israel’s northern border dominates the strategic debate.
Since Oct. 7, the escalating back-and-forth between Israel and Hezbollah has claimed hundreds of lives and depopulated swaths of northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Although Israel has inflicted perhaps 10 fatalities for each one it has suffered, the government is hardly satisfied with the situation.
Tens of thousands of Israelis are still scattered from their homes; the country’s inhabitable territory has, in effect, contracted. Israeli tolerance for that predicament is waning.
Benny Gantz, until recently a member of the war cabinet, has said he wants Israelis back in their homes for the start of the school year. Israel is redeploying troops from its south to its north. The cabinet has reportedly blessed a plan to smash Hezbollah’s capabilities — especially its arsenal of perhaps 150,000 rockets — and push it back from the border. But sober-minded observers know this would be a whole new sort of war.
Hezbollah’s elite ground forces are better than anything Hamas once boasted. Its missiles could saturate Israel’s Iron Dome defenses, pummel its infrastructure and cause carnage in major cities. The CEO of Israel’s government-owned power company recently warned that Hezbollah attacks could plunge Israel into darkness. And this crisis doesn’t come at a convenient time.
Months of tough combat in Gaza have given Israeli troops vital experience but exhausted an army accustomed to short, sharp wars. A war with Hezbollah could also ignite violence in the West Bank, where underfunded Palestinian security forces are near the breaking point. It might even trigger war with Iran, which would be loath to let Israel pummel two key proxies — Hamas and then Hezbollah — in a row.
For Biden, this must all seem like a nightmare. Israel would need vast American support — munitions, intelligence, diplomatic backing — against Hezbollah, even while Benjamin Netanyahu seems set on scoring points with his right-wing political allies by picking gratuitous fights with Biden.
To be sure, the US would reap strategic benefits from a war that battered Iran’s most capable client. But it would pay a huge price along the way. An expanded conflict would further roil the Middle East and radicalize Arab populations. It would demand new infusions of US aid just as Biden is trying to placate disaffected Democrats by nudging Israel to wind down its current war. It would divert additional US attention and resources from the Pacific and, perhaps, Ukraine. And a more inflamed Middle East would feed the perception of global chaos that darkens Biden’s bid for reelection.
This is why Biden has long tried to deter Israel from attacking Hezbollah, even as he tries to deter Hezbollah and Iran from attacking Israel. Today, Biden is seeking, without much success, a Gaza cease-fire that would deprive Hezbollah of a pretext for attacks on Israel, while trying to broker an agreement for a Hezbollah retreat from the border so Israeli civilians can return to their homes.
Lasting calm seems unlikely. Many Israelis believe, rightly, that Hezbollah seeks their destruction, and — after the horrors of Oct. 7 — are unwilling to live indefinitely with the threat it poses. But there may nonetheless be an opening for de-escalation. Israel knows that war with Hezbollah would be hellish — and Hezbollah knows that all-out conflict with Israel would be its ruin.
The key is ruthless coercive diplomacy. Hezbollah is more likely to pull back, and Iran is more likely to counsel retrenchment, if they are convinced that America will aid Israel resolutely.
Biden must make clear that he will give Israel the time and resources it needs to decimate Hezbollah — that there will be no early calls for a cease-fire, and that American bombs and bullets will flow. He should make clear, moreover, that Washington will inflict crushing punishment on Iran if Iran enters the conflict — as a way of convincing Hezbollah that if it fights, it fights alone.
Unfortunately, the administration’s body language signals something different — a transparent, almost desperate desire for calm in the run-up to a crucial presidential vote. When Iran attacked Israel in April, for instance, the US — after organizing a successful defense against Tehran’s drones and missiles — pivoted immediately to restraining the Israeli response.
The current Israeli government is not the most sympathetic ally: Indeed, Netanyahu and his political allies often seem bent on making their country more difficult to back. Yet America must work with the ally it has, and it must recognize that the path to peace isn’t always linear. As the risks in the Middle East rise, helping Israel make a credible threat of war may be the price of convincing Hezbollah and Iran that they should swerve to avoid it.