After Israel's airstrike killing a Hezbollah terrorist in Baalbek, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah, said in a televised address that the attack "will not push us to retreat, it will rather increase our determination."
Israel's "aggression on Baalbek or any other region will not remain unanswered, and the resistance will respond in the appropriate manner," he added.
This is a Lebanese lawmaker who is openly speaking on behalf of an Iranian militia that acts against Lebanese interests. He is inciting the country he supposedly represents into a war that no one in Lebanon wants.
The pattern on the Israel-Lebanese border has been consistent since October 7. Hezbollah started firing, and Israel responded proportionately. Israel wants to deter Hezbollah from attacking, so it is aiming at major Hezbollah members. Hezbollah does not want to appear weak so it responds in its own ever-increasing ways.
Hezbollah's main motivation in its attacks is not to achieve military goals . It is not support for "Gaza." At this time, Hezbollah's motivation is honor: it absolutely does not want to be seen as capitulating to Israeli force.
Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said yesterday , "If the Israelis go too far, we will retaliate more. All what we have used until now in the fighting is the minimum of what we own."
This is the honor/shame mindset, and it is more powerful than all other considerations.
Yet Israel cannot allow Hezbollah escalations to go unpunished which would be interpreted as its own weakness and invite more aggression. Which means that war is inevitable: each side's responses and counter-responses are calibrated but ever-increasing based on their own calculus of what is a proportional and effective response, which may be and often is interpreted by the other side differently.
The only way to stop this very real cycle of violence is to find a motive for Hezbollah to want to de-escalate and still fit into the honor/shame paradigm.
Clearly the Lebanese government is too weak, fractured and dysfunctional to be able to do anything. After all, an MP openly supporting a non-state army's aggression should result in a censure at least for any self-respecting government. The Lebanese government has long ago surrendered to Hezbollah.
But the Lebanese people have not. Most of them oppose Hezbollah and do not want to be dragged into war. Hezbollah is sensitive to Lebanese public opinion, because it claims to be acting on Lebanon's behalf.
If the Lebanese start a protest movement against Hezbollah, with rallies and demonstrations that receive decent publicity, that would shame Hezbollah more than not responding to Israeli attacks would.
No one can change the honor/shame mindset, but people can use it wisely to influence its adherents. A large patriotic pro-Lebanon, anti-Hezbollah protest movement would influence Hezbollah far more than Israeli assassinations of their leaders does. It would show that Hezbollah is lying in its pretense to be "defending Lebanon." It would give Hezbollah a tree to climb down on; giving it an excuse to ramp down its retaliations by saying that it wants to do what is best for Lebanon and its people.
There are still much bigger issues around Hezbollah that need to be addressed. But right now, the only way to avoid a truly devastating war would be for ordinary Lebanese people to start a grassroots and purely domestic protest movement.
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