Not if, but when. Since the second Lebanon war in July-August 2006, a sense of inevitability seems to apply to the Israel-Hezbollah tensions, leading pundits to forecast initiation of a third confrontation. The crystallisation of the Syrian crisis, the gradual involvement of Hezbollah on Assad’s side, as well as the growing approach to the Israeli-Syrian border of militias supported by Iran, are all elements which seem to convey the possibility that the war theatre will not be limited to the Israeli-Lebanese border, but will probably extend to Syria. By an ironic twist of fate, Syria continues to keep Lebanon under its threatening shadow: gone are the times of the Pax Syriana – Syria’s de facto protectorate of Lebanon – and Damascus once again has the potential to destabilise Beirut.
The outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011 created a security dilemma for Israel: on one side its historical enemy, Damascus, on the other an increasingly radical Islamist opposition. Tel Aviv adopted a position of "interested neutrality" focusing instead on securing the Israeli-Syrian border, trying to avoid spillover from the Syrian chaos into its territory. Israel’s stance towards the Syrian war grew more assertive following Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict, officially in 2013. In January of that year Israel inaugurated its policy of targeted strikes on Hezbollah’s vehicles or agents in Syria. Israel’s growing involvement in the Syrian war – while officially remaining neutral – has been driven by the need to prevent Hezbollah and Iran from coming too close to its borders. Since September 2015, with Russian intervention in the war – which dramatically altered the balance of the conflict in Assad’s favor – Israel has been busy building a "safe zone" in rebel-held areas of southern Syria, intended to keep Iran and Hezbollah as far away from its border as possible, as well as to solidify its control over the occupied Golan Heights. The overall objective is to prevent Hezbollah from building military bases in Syria close to the Israeli border, which the movement could use to conduct strikes against Israel without the risk of Israeli retaliation on Lebanon’s territory and population.
In any case, Hezbollah – and Lebanon – could find themselves trapped in the confrontation between Israel and Iran, since a conflagration on the Syrian battlefield could lead to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In February 2018 escalation was avoided following the shooting down of an Israeli jet by the Syrian army after a raid on Iran-held territory; in April, Hezbollah refrained from reacting to Israel’s unprecedented air raid on Iranian military targets in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of Iranian military personnel. But war could be only a miscalculation away.
In order to shield Lebanon from the risk of Israeli retaliation in the near future, Hezbollah would need to detach itself from the Syrian conflict. Paradoxically, in order to avoid another war with Israel, Hezbollah would have to return its focus to "resistance" to Israel rather than support for Assad. A choice which the Lebanese movement seems not prepared to do, notwithstanding the outstanding burden – even in terms of domestic consensus – it has to sustain. Hezbollah, in fact, remains the jewel in the crown of Iran’s "forward defense strategy". Indeed, it could be argued that it is also to protect this jewel that Tehran has committed itself so much to Assad’s cause.
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