Hezbollah’s No. 2 — who, as I noted earlier, is not exactly tripping over himself to be proclaimed Hezbollah’s new No. 1 — has asserted that the terrorist organization supports the efforts of “Lebanon” to establish a truce with Israel.
Of course, Lebanon’s government is run by Hezbollah, which is run by Iran.
The Jerusalem Post reports that, with Israel having eliminated Hezbollah’s leaders, most of its commanders, and thousands of its beeper-issued jihadists, deputy leader Naim Qassem is now hopeful that “after the issue of a cease-fire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be taken.”
It marks the first time Hezbollah has signaled willingness to stop the fighting it started on October 8, 2023, without conditioning a cease-fire on a cessation of the fighting that Hamas started with its atrocities the preceding day. Getting your brains beaten in can be clarifying.
For public consumption, Qassem takes the position that he is supporting a cease-fire initiative being led by Nabih Berri, nominally the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament. And putting on his brave face, he added that “if the enemy [Israel] continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”
That’s two brave faces in one day. Earlier, Qassem claimed that Hezbollah had “overcome all the blows that have been dealt us,” in conjunction with which the jihadists fired over 100 missiles at Haifa. The attack had no meaningful effect; in the interim, the IDF proceeded with more aerial bombardments of Hezbollah havens south of Beirut.
The battlefield has already decided.
Even the feckless Biden-Harris administration grasps that Israel will not agree to a cease-fire without ironclad security guarantees that the approximately 100,000 Israelis driven from their homes in the north by Hezbollah’s aggression can return without fear of renewed attacks once the jihadists catch their breath. Israel has a chance to destroy Hezbollah as a fighting force, and it is likely to continue pressing that advantage.
Strategically, Hezbollah’s cease-fire offer will be used by Biden-Harris officials to increase pressure on Israel to limit the retaliatory strike it is planning against Iran — which fired missiles at Israel last week, which unleashed Hezbollah a year ago, and which is orchestrating the seven-front jihadist war.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meantime, has publicly urged the Lebanese people to rise up and free themselves of Hezbollah while it is in its deeply degraded state. He says the war would end with the end of Hezbollah.