‘Iran still calculating response’ to Israel strikes on Hezbollah leader, says analyst

We spoke to the political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who’s in Jerusalem.

We began by asking her how she expected Iran to respond to the killing of yet another senior Hezbollah leader in Lebanon.

Dahlia Scheindlin: On Friday evening, there was an extremely high expectation that there would be a harsh response. Missile attacks, of course, from Hezbollah and possibly from Iran. What we realised is that over the last couple of days, the organisation doesn’t seem to have the capacity to respond with a major barrage of rockets, and Iran is apparently still calculating what its response should be. There are also reasons why Iran might not want to respond immediately, chief among them that this could spark the regional war that Iran is concerned about, especially with a strong American presence in the region.

Cathy Newman: I guess Israel can’t afford to take that for granted, given that Iran has said there will be reprisals, and back in 2006, many people are looking back to that war between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel really underestimated Hezbollah at that point, didn’t it?

Dahlia Scheindlin: Yes, but apparently Hezbollah also underestimated Israel. And it was Nasrallah, of course, himself who said that if he had known about the severity of Israel’s response, he might not have undertaken the original operation that sparked that war. No, Israel absolutely cannot take for granted that there won’t be a response, but there’s no way to anticipate whether it will be immediate or longer term, possibly, and what form it might take.

Cathy Newman: Do you still expect Israel to mount a ground invasion, and what are your fears if that does happen?

Dahlia Scheindlin: It’s not unlikely. However, I think the major dilemmas or the major things we need to look out for is whether this will be a ground operation that seems to be very targeted and limited, or if it looks like it’s the kind of operation that goes into something more ongoing.

Cathy Newman: And when you think that the strikes are still ongoing in Gaza, does it have the capacity to fight on two fronts?

Dahlia Scheindlin: It has the capacity to fight on two fronts, but it does mean moving forces from the south to the north, and that’s already happened. And it means probably, to some extent, lowering the intensity of the fighting in Gaza. We’ve seen an announcement by the Israeli authorities over the last number of days that Hamas has been defeated militarily. Israel has not defined a strategic endpoint, not to the war in Gaza and not to this operation in Lebanon.

Cathy Newman: And when you look at the terrible number of casualties in Gaza, nearly 42,000 Palestinians killed, 1,000 killed in Lebanon, 6,000 injured, a million people displaced. Do you worry about Israel’s standing internationally because of that?

Dahlia Scheindlin: Israel’s standing internationally is at its lowest point, possibly, in its history. That doesn’t mean it’s completely isolated, yet, there’s still worse it can get. But Israel is facing trouble with its most stalwart allies. Israel is facing the possibility of some sort of constraints or restrictions on arms exports from a number of countries. Even the US has been possibly delaying one shipment and will continue to think about how to apply US law, restricting the export of arms if there is a danger that they’re violating human rights. I think that’s a conversation that is going on in the Democratic Party. But this has already created trouble at the political level with the US-Israel relationship and with other allies. Now, Israel doesn’t have to be completely isolated, but Israel has been cultivating a series of non-Democratic allies over the years.

Cathy Newman: Despite testing its relationship with its strongest ally, the United States, almost to destruction, Netanyahu’s ratings domestically are going up.

Dahlia Scheindlin: There’s no question that the current war will boost his ratings, in my mind. Again, they may have a cap, we don’t know. And I think it’s a little bit overstating the case to assume that he would either start or continue a war just for that reason. Having said that, Netanyahu’s own political fortunes have never been absent from his decision making, and whether or not we think that, the reality is that the Israeli public thinks that.