Hezbollah seeks to stoke tensions with Israel over Ghajar - analysis

Hezbollah and other political ideologies in Lebanon are looking to stoke a crisis with Israel over the northern border. They are focusing on several areas, including Mount Dov, where Hezbollah set up tents over the past few months, and the Alawite-Arab village of Ghajar, which straddles the border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

In each case, the goal is to create tensions over a largely immaterial issue, and then, once the crisis exists, to call it a redline for potential conflict in a bid for concessions. Hezbollah has learned over the years that this strategy works, and for example, it sought to control parts of the maritime deal.

Over the weekend in Ghajar, one of the hotspots, there appeared to be no evidence of tensions in the air. Tourists could be seen in the town, which recently reopened to tourists after many years of being closed. Restaurants offered home-cooked meals, and food trucks awaited customers.

At the entrance to the Ghajar, an IDF soldier sat inside a concrete guard house. Nearby, outside Metulla, UN forces conducted a sweep of an area near a stream that leads to Nahal Ayun. A Palestinian flag lay in tatters on a hill near the border in Lebanon, clearly having not been replaced for a while. But tensions grow behind the scenes of these quaint towns, and they are being stoked by Hezbollah.

According to a proposal that was put forth by the US to Israel, in exchange for Hezbollah withdrawing its tents, Israel would stop the construction of a barrier, Channel 12 reported Monday.

Hezbollah raised Ghajar as an issue recently, claiming Israel’s creation of any kind of barrier or fence is effectively a land grab. The terrorist group raised this as an example, similar to its claims on Mount Dov, as a reason to create a cause for tensions.

Hezbollah will do what it can to manufacture issues and create tensions

Mount Dov also had Hezbollah tents. What Hezbollah is doing is creating two separate issues that it may then try to link together – Ghajar to Mount Dov – and then taking existing disputes that may go back 23 years to when Israel left Lebanon in 2000 to create artificial tensions.

According to reports, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati met with UNIFIL and conducted talks with Commander Aroldo Lazaro. Israel’s goal is to get the tents out of its territory. Lebanon wants Israel to pull back from Ghajar.So far, Israel has been cautious and has worked with relevant organizations, such as the UN. But Lebanon appears to be pushing this.

Lebanon currently lacks a president, something that may be a welcome distraction for Lebanese politicians to each show how “patriotic” they can be by staking demands on things unheard of until a few months ago.Israel is a convenient cause to rally around.

“Change MPs Melhem Khalaf, Najat Aoun, Elias Jradi and Firas Hamdan will head Sunday to the Ghajar village that is besieged by the Israeli enemy,” a Lebanese media outlet reported.

“Hezbollah denounced Israel for building a concrete wall around Ghajar, calling on the Lebanese state to take action to ‘prevent the consolidation of this occupation’ by Israel of Ghajar, home to around 3,000 people,” the report said.

According to Naharnet, a Lebanese news site, the “so-called Blue Line cuts through Ghajar, formally placing its northern part in Lebanon and its southern part in the Israeli-occupied and annexed Golan Heights. The residents of Ghajar have been granted Israeli citizenship rights, and Israel has recently opened the town, long a military zone, to tourism.”

Lebanon is trying to pressure Israel over this. According to reports, Lebanese activists want their citizens to be able to enter Ghajar, which would pose a security problem for Israel and clearly is meant as a kind of provocation, a demand that won’t be met.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry was “following with interest” this issue, the Arab48 news site reported.

Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based pan-Arabist satellite news television station that is considered pro-Iranian, reported that Lebanon had not acted in the past to “restore” neither Ghajar, nor other villages taken from Lebanon in the 1920s. The issue “returned to the forefront of attention after Hezbollah’s statement, in which it warned of the danger of aggressive measures, [and] can be considered an indication of the Lebanese state’s abuse of Lebanon’s southern borders,” the report said.

Hezbollah is trying to ride this issue. Russia’s Sputnik also took up the cause on its Arabic news site, claiming that

Lebanese politicians “explained that the vast majority of representatives, who represent the broadest group of citizens, adopt the same position, which indicates the correctness and eligibility of the issue and everyone’s commitment to the necessity of imposing state authority on all its lands.”

This is now both a cause célèbre and casus belli for Lebanon and Hezbollah. As with the maritime issue, they work in concert to create new demands and then claim that if the demands are not met, they have the right to tensions.

Hezbollah has already done this through its tents on Mount Dov, creating facts on the ground and a kind of legitimized institutional presence to then “return” to if they are removed.

Hezbollah is trying to ride this issue. Russia’s Sputnik also took up the cause on its Arabic news site, claiming that

Lebanese politicians “explained that the vast majority of representatives, who represent the broadest group of citizens, adopt the same position, which indicates the correctness and eligibility of the issue and everyone’s commitment to the necessity of imposing state authority on all its lands.”

This is now both a cause célèbre and casus belli for Lebanon and Hezbollah. As with the maritime issue, they work in concert to create new demands and then claim that if the demands are not met, they have the right to tensions.

Hezbollah has already done this through its tents on Mount Dov, creating facts on the ground and a kind of legitimized institutional presence to then “return” to if they are removed.