Israel Is Banking on U.S. Support for a Wider War Against the Axis of Resistance

As Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza enters its fourth month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears intent on pulling the U.S. deeper into a wider regional war. In recent weeks, Israel has intensified its military operations inside Lebanon, killing several mid-level Hezbollah commanders in what appear to be targeted assassination strikes. Israel is also widely believed to have been responsible for the January 2 drone strike in a Beirut suburb that killed a senior Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri. Hezbollah, a well-armed and organized Lebanese resistance movement with close links to Iran and a central member in the axis of resistance, has regularly fired rockets into northern Israel and has conducted drone strikes of its own, including against a strategic Israeli military facility.

This week’s guests on Intercepted are Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics at Cardiff University and a scholar of Hezbollah, and Karim Makdisi, an associate professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut. They join Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain for an in-depth discussion on whether Israel’s war on Gaza will spark what many in the region believe is an inevitable “great war” against Israel. They also discuss the role of Iran and its relationships with Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as how Joe Biden compares to past presidents on the wars in Palestine and Lebanon.

Jeremy Scahill: This is Intercepted.

Welcome to Intercepted. I’m Jeremy Scahill.

Murtaza Hussain: And I’m Murtaza Hussain.

JS: Maz, there is a lot to talk about this week, especially what appears to be the expansion of Israel’s war against Gaza now into a broader war. There have been concerns from the beginning that part of Israel’s strategy in the way that it’s been conducting its scorched earth campaign against Gaza, and the rhetoric that it’s using comparing Hamas to ISIS, and appealing to the United States to view this as the U.S. war, not just Israel’s war, is that the ultimate target of it would be to force the United States or get the United States engaged in an open war against Iran.

And what we’ve seen happen is what’s called the axis of resistance, which involves the Houthis in Yemen, the Islamic resistance in Iraq, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas. We are now starting to see this network, this coalition, become much more bold and defiant toward Israel and, also, the United States. But what we’re also seeing is increased military activity on the part of the Israelis against Hezbollah in Lebanon and, also, Israeli officials talking, openly saying that they don’t necessarily want a wider war against Hezbollah and its allies, but that it’s certainly on the table.

And, of course, a couple of weeks ago, or within the last two weeks, we saw the assassination in a suburb of Beirut of Saleh al-Arouri, who was a top Hamas leader, and one of the main liaisons between Hamas and Hezbollah, an individual who had also been involved with the negotiations around the exchange of hostages and prisoners between Hamas and Israel.

Now, Israel hasn’t taken responsibility officially for that attack, but it’s widely believed that Israel conducted that strike in Beirut, a very, very significant attack inside of Lebanon, because Hassan Nasrallah — the head of Hezbollah, which is a very powerful resistance movement with sophisticated military capability — has indicated that Hezbollah is not going to tolerate Israel doing those kinds of strikes.

We also this week saw a couple more Israeli drone strikes, including strikes that Israel did, in fact, take responsibility for, one of which killed a fairly senior member of Hezbollah as well. You also have had Hezbollah launching regular missile barrages into northern Israel. And, in fact, one of the operations that Hezbollah did, did significant damage — in the assessment, even, of the Israeli government — to a key military installation that Israel has right near the border with Lebanon.

So, a lot to talk about, about all of this. We’re going to have two great guests coming up soon on the show, Maz.

MH: Yeah. The situation is developing day by day. There were reports that Hezbollah had also retaliated by attacking another Israeli military base in retaliation for the assassination of one of their commanders in Lebanon earlier this week. It’s clear that every single day the escalation cycle is continuing, and I think it’s very clear from the Israeli perspective that they seem to have a window in their view to bring the United States in as a belligerent in this conflict.

Obviously, the U.S. is trying to pivot away from the region, it’s drawn down its forces significantly after two decades of very unhappy wars in the Middle East. Yet, Israel still has very serious security challenges — has rivalries, mostly with this network of Iranian-patronized groups in different countries surrounding its borders. And, as long as that exists, it’s still going to need the U.S. to have a very, very strong military footprint. And, if a major war begins now on the back of the conflict in Gaza that expands to Lebanon or Syria or other countries besides, the U.S. still has significant military assets in place, which could very, very likely be drawn into the conflict.

And, as most people know, it’s pretty much blamed — this war in Gaza — very much so on the U.S., which is providing critical arms and political support to Israel. So, from Israel’s perspective, this could be a final opportunity to have the U.S. weigh in, fighting Hezbollah and Iran directly. Without that support, Israel has very, very unclear chances of emerging decisively victorious in such a conflict.

JS: Yeah. And Antony Blinken — the U.S. Secretary of State — has been in the region again on Tuesday, he was in Israel. And Blinken continues to put on this kind of propaganda show, where the Biden administration talks about its serious concern for the fate of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and yet continues to keep this pipeline of weaponry open to Israel.

It’s really clear — and you could actually read this in the Israeli press as well — that if the Biden administration wanted to cut this off and shut it down, it could do it instantly. If Biden said the weapons shipments are going to stop, this is over. And it’s quite fascinating to watch how U.S. diplomats keep getting played, whether it’s Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, or Antony Blinken, who’s there.

The Israelis will say one thing to the Americans, and one thing to the American press; oh, Israel is shifting now into a different phase of this war, they’re going to go more into a U.S.-style targeted assassination campaign, like was run under Barack Obama when the drone program really got put on steroids and the U.S. started whacking people in these so-called “targeted operations.” But then, to the Israeli domestic public, they’re giving a different message, which is that the war against Hamas is continuing, that this is going to go on for quite a long time.

And I think what’s really interesting about Blinken’s visit is, he arrives in Tel Aviv, and he then is subjected to a lecture, basically, by Israeli officials denouncing South Africa’s attempt to bring— Or, not attempt, but South Africa is bringing Israel before the International Court of Justice on genocide charges. Those arguments are going to begin on Thursday of this week, and South Africa is going to be presenting a case, that is basically saying that Israel has failed to prevent genocide in Gaza, and seeking the court to essentially assert its jurisdiction.

Now, Israel and the United States both don’t care much about international law as it applies to their operations. But this is going to be a quite significant public moment, because South Africa is going to make a case that is going to seek to highlight the statements of Israeli officials that are genocidal, clearly, in nature, and the actions of Israel. And then Israel is going to present its initial defense, and Israeli officials told Antony Blinken that they’re looking forward to presenting their self-defense case at the International Court of Justice. 

MH: Yeah, it’s fascinating. The way Benjamin Netanyahu talks to U.S. officials, or rebuts their statements and his own public statements is almost comical. It’s kind of bullying, in some ways, U.S. officials. And, as much as people talk about, well, Iran has all these proxies in the region, which are fighting for it and so forth, Israel sometimes seems to treat U.S. administrations like its own proxy, especially Netanyahu, and the way he sort of intervenes or talks down to U.S. officials when they come to visit him.

And I think this court case is something which is very alarming, even though, as you mentioned correctly, Israel and the U.S. tend to ignore as much as possible any dictates of international law in their own operations. From Israel’s perspective, it’s another step on the path of becoming a pariah, or a pariah which is only reliant on one country as its shield — which is the United States — and how long that situation can be maintained, as you see this steady accumulation of legal and political precedents which are focused on isolating Israel more and more.

It’s very, very unclear, and I think it makes more and more impetus for Israel to intervene as much as it can in American politics, to maintain that defense there. Because, without that, it would be standing very, very much alone, and this ICJ case is only more symbolism of that.

JS: As we now move toward the program and bring our guests in, it’s really vital to remember the horrifying death toll that continues to rise in Gaza. So many children have been killed or maimed. The images that we see are just utterly gut-wrenching. You have now almost no functioning medical facilities left in Gaza. The World Health Organization and other groups are just saying that the situation is beyond dire, and so many people around the world now calling for a ceasefire.

And it should shock everyone’s soul that this has gone on now for more than three months, and the entire thing is being supported by the most powerful political figure in the world: Joe Biden, the President of the United States.

So, joining us now are Amal Saad. She is lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, a scholar of Hezbollah, and the politics of the resistance axis. Also joining us from Beirut is Karim Makdisi, he is associate professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut.

Amal, Karim, welcome to Intercepted. Thank you so much for joining us.

Amal Saad: Thanks for having me.

Karim Makdisi: Thank you very much for having me. 

JS: Karim, let’s begin with you. First, just in the very big picture, talk about, now, how these events in Gaza, the strikes that Israel has been conducting in Lebanon — not just in areas that are under the control of Hezbollah, but also the recent strike that took place in a suburb of Beirut targeting a senior Hamas official — talk about the latest analysis you can offer on the perspective from Lebanon on Israel’s attacks in both Gaza and, now, increasingly inside of Lebanon. 

KM: I think the first thing to note is the larger context of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.

So, even before we think about these last few weeks, it’s important to realize that, as far as Lebanon is concerned, the Israelis have been attacking and invading for the better part of for decades or so. Including in 1978 and 1982, throughout the 1990s when there was an occupation for over 20 years. And then a very big war in 2006, and then there have been incursions since then; attacks, violations of the airspace, the maritime space.

So there’s been a lot of tension over many years, until Lebanon first was liberated in the year 2000 and then, as I said, following the 2006 war with this, there’s been a kind of balance between Hezbollah and Israelis when it comes to South Lebanon.

So, with this in mind, I think it’s important just to realize, again, that the idea of the Israelis attacking — inside Beirut, for example, most recently — is something that is a big escalation in Lebanon. It’s something that many people are worried about, they’re worried about the way in which Hezbollah has responded and might respond, given that they certainly have the arsenal to respond in quite an emphatic fashion, if they choose to do so.

I think Hezbollah has been very restrained so far. They’ve kept their attacks on military targets. Unlike the Israelis, they’ve kept their attacks largely on military targets within around eight or so kilometers of the north of Israel. I think they, as I said, I think they’ve been quite restrained, and the worry is that with Israel being on the defensive, I think with Israel being unable to achieve its objectives in Gaza, being unable to eliminate Hamas as they kind of declared that they wanted to, to dismantle Hamas, just as they were unable to dismantle Hezbollah in 2006.

The track record of the Israelis is that they then tend to escalate, they then tend to push further and further and further, in the hope that Hezbollah then responds, perhaps to civilian targets, or responds in a way that they can then use as another justification or excuse to then deepen their response to Lebanon, and potentially provoke a war. I think this is the thing most of us here are quite worried about, that the Israelis have an incentive at this stage to provoke a regional war, including in Lebanon.

In that sense, Hezbollah is being very, very restrained, but it certainly has the capability to respond if it has to.

MH: Amal, for our listeners who don’t know, can you tell us a bit about the origins of Hezbollah and its relationship with the Israeli state over the past few decades? Karim mentioned that Israel occupied South Lebanon for many, many years, and Hezbollah emerged out of that context.

How does Hezbollah view Israel, and why would a conflict between Hezbollah and Israel be far, far greater in magnitude and scope than the current war, even in Gaza, between Hamas and Israel?

AS: OK. So, the first part of your question: Hezbollah owes its existence, really, to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. It started off as an umbrella group of various resistance factions, which then united and formed the Hezbollah organizational nucleus, and it succeeded in expelling Israeli troops from Lebanon unconditionally, actually; it was a unilateral withdrawal in 2000.

Now, there remain territories that are occupied by Israel in Lebanon. However, this isn’t the reason, though, that Hezbollah continues to remain armed in its resistance. It’s always been tied, actually, and this has been quite public. In fact, it’s been tied to Israel’s very existence, as Hezbollah officials put it, its very existence as an aggressive, as they call it, usurping entity. And so, they say, so long as Israel exists, this threat will remain to Lebanon.

That’s a part of it. The other part is that they will always want to support their Palestinian brothers. And so, that’s another reason why Hezbollah has remained armed since 1982, and has refused any talk of disarmament.

I think Hezbollah, and I think the U.S. and Israel are well aware of its military capabilities and how they’ve developed since 2006. Now, in 2006, Hezbollah was already what we would call a hybrid military force, meaning it was no longer just a guerrilla group as it had been in the past. It clearly emerged as sort of in between a conventional armed force and a guerrilla group, and that’s why it was very successful in defeating Israel’s objectives in 2006.

Now, since then, as we know, Hezbollah has developed its military capabilities, not only in terms of types of weapons, in terms of the size of its forces, which have grown from 5,000 to over a hundred thousand in terms of rockets, from thousands to over, maybe, 150,000. So, we’re talking about, obviously, in terms of size, in terms of sophistication, and so on. But Hezbollah has also been very battle hardened because of its intervention in Syria.

So, all of these factors together, I think, make it now a formidable force. And I would say, at this point, we could classify Hezbollah more along the sort of hybrid spectrum as closer to a conventional armed force than a guerrilla force. I would actually call it a resistance army, if you like.

So, I do think we’re talking here about a war, if and when it happens — and I do think it’s inevitable that this war will happen, what they’re calling the “great war,” if you like — is that, while Israel could obviously destroy much of Lebanon, no one doubts this, and kill a very large number of people with its aerial power— What Hezbollah lacks in aerial power it makes up for with military ability, in addition to the fact that, as I said, it has longer-range missiles, more sophisticated weapons than in the past, precision guided missiles. In fact, they used precision guided anti-tank guided missiles, it seems, for the attack on the Meron air intelligence base.

So, it definitely does have much more formidable weapons, although it would still be, I would call it an asymmetrical war, in that, obviously, Israel would be much more militarily powerful. Hezbollah could still inflict massive, massive damage on Israel.

I think we have to look at these things, not in absolute terms, but in relative terms. Relative to what Israel’s accustomed to, this would be a formidable war, because it’s unprecedented that any war is taken to Israel proper. All wars that have been fought tend to be fought in other countries or territories that Israel has occupied or invaded. And, while in 2006 Hezbollah did launch cross-border strikes with missiles, I’m talking here about, it could strike the heart of Tel Aviv. It could go to the utmost limits in terms of the depth of its incursions, the type of damage it could cause, in terms of striking all types of civilian infrastructure, Hezbollah and Nasrallah himself, Hezbollah’s leader, has threatened this on multiple occasions.

So, in terms of quantity, in terms of quality of attacks, we’re looking at something Israel has never experienced in its history. And, because of that, and because it has so much to lose, in a way that, frankly Lebanon doesn’t, because Lebanon has been undergoing a severe economic collapse, doesn’t have the sort of infrastructure that Israel does, doesn’t have the economy that Israel does. So, Israel would lose a lot more economically and in terms of infrastructure than Lebanon would, in fact.

JS: Amal, you also have an effort to paint a certain type of picture for your domestic audience, and this is certainly true of the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, going back to Vietnam, etc., etc. And the Israeli public is largely being shown an IDF or an Israeli government-endorsed version of events on the ground in Gaza, but if you follow all-sides media and all of the images and propaganda being put out, you start to recognize a very different reality on the ground.

For instance, Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, they’re putting out videos every day showing— And, in fact the little dancing red triangle has become a kind of iconic symbol across social media. For people that aren’t following this, as Hamas has been putting out videos, they will often show multistage perspectives from attacks that they are conducting on Israeli troop formations, on tanks, and they’ll put this little red triangle bouncing above it, and then they’ll show the actual strike against the tank, or the strike against the ground forces.

For people who have been following it closely, it’s very clear that the war itself, the military campaign against Hamas — not just talking about the scorched earth bombing of civilians, but the actual military campaign against Hamas in Gaza — is not going the way that Israel is portraying it to the Israeli public. And what you and Karim have both indicated is that Hezbollah is a much more advanced and well-armed entity than Hamas.

I’m curious about that aspect of it. There’s a lot of attention being placed on, you know, Hamas has tunnels — a tunnel infrastructure under Gaza. Well, we know that Hezbollah also has an extensive underground infrastructure, but also has a lot more sophisticated weaponry and closer ties to other powerful nation states, namely Iran.

Talk about that aspect of this, Amal, and why, when Nasrallah says an attack against Hezbollah, or taking on Hezbollah directly, or invading Lebanon directly would be a world different from what Israel is attempting to do right now on the ground in Gaza. 

AS: Yeah. I think that’s a very useful point of reference, that if we look at Hamas, which doesn’t have anything close to Hezbollah’s military capabilities, neither in terms of size — I think estimates say it’s between 25,000 and 50,000 fighters maximum — we know that its weapons are quite basic weapons, they’re not sophisticated, a lot of them are made in Gaza. You know, Hamas manufactures them itself. I don’t think that’s just tied to the fact that it’s not as close to Iran, but I think more [that] it’s just very hard to smuggle weapons into Gaza, clearly.

Even so, the Israelis have not been able to achieve a single strategic objective in Gaza in three months. They haven’t even been able to take out any senior Hamas — I don’t know about midranking — but definitely no senior Hamas commanders or officials, and that’s why they, in part, had to resort to the strike — or, rather, the assassination — of al-Arouri in Lebanon, because they weren’t able to take out anyone significant in Gaza. It was to make up for their losses there.

So, I would say maybe Hamas is where Hezbollah was, militarily speaking, in the early 2000s. It’s still in that phase, maybe a little more advanced; you know, I’m not a military expert. But it’s definitely far behind Hezbollah. So, if that’s anything to go by, what we’re looking at here is Hezbollah is the most powerful military non-state actor, maybe, in the world, according to many experts, not just in the region.

And the very fact that it defeated Israel, and by Israel’s own — the Winograd report. This isn’t just Hezbollah propaganda. Israel did make an investigation, and found that it had failed in its military objectives. So, I could imagine that it would fail even more miserably in Lebanon, which makes it very difficult to understand how the Israeli government believes — if this is true, and they really are heading towards an all-out war with Hezbollah — how they can think that they could escape their domestic problems, especially Netanyahu, by taking on Hezbollah, which is way more challenging. The U.S. defense officials have said this in leaks these past few days.

It’s just kind of mind boggling what they’re expecting to get out of this, knowing fully well that Hezbollah could actually destroy a lot of Israeli military and civilian targets.

MH: Karim, I wanted to ask you briefly, as well, obviously, Hezbollah occupies a very unique space in Lebanon’s politics, in the sense that it’s the most powerful armed force and, maybe, political force in the country, but it is not the government of the country. And, in recent speeches, the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah has responded to the current situation in Gaza, and has seemed hesitant to actually engage in this war that, as Amal points out, the Israelis seem to want quite extensively at the moment, or seem to indicate that they may be interested in having.

Can you talk a bit about what Hezbollah’s own posture and reaction has been since October 7th in the beginning of the war in Gaza, and how they view the possibility of partially embarking on what Amal referred to as the Great War? 

KM: Yeah, if I can just say one thing, just to kind of add to what Amal was saying. 

I think it’s interesting to consider the different speeds upon which, on the one hand, Israelis in Gaza, especially, but also in the West Bank, and in Lebanon previously, and potentially coming up in weeks or months. Their ability to inflict massive human suffering on people. And that’s, of course, the big concern for people everywhere. So they are perfectly capable, and willing, and have a long history of inflicting massive, massive human suffering, including this genocidal war in Gaza today.

On the other hand, as Amal was pointing to, increasingly, both their intelligence, their political objectives, and their ability to impose outcomes on these wars has diminished greatly over the past couple of decades. And this was certainly true in 2006 in Lebanon, in the war in Lebanon, where they stated, we’re going to destroy Hezbollah, we’re going to make sure that they’re totally disarmed. And, of course, none of that happened.

Then we, of course, know that Hezbollah ended up, as Amal is saying, becoming even more sophisticated, adding a lot more expertise, more weaponry, and have a much stronger military than they did prior to 2006. Same thing is going on in Gaza today.

So, the ability to inflict massive humanitarian damage and human suffering is unprecedented as, of course, you guys have been covering quite well over the past three months. But their inability to impose a political or military kind of solution at the end of the day is something which is quite notable. And I think Nasrallah and Hezbollah in general, and many other people in the region, have noted, and I think that’s quite significant.

And they also understand that, without American support, which is why Nasrallah and others have made a very strong point at pointing out that this is an American-Israeli, not just Israeli, but it’s very consciously an American-Israeli war that’s going on in Gaza, and potentially in the region, and we see this in Iraq and other places, in Yemen.

So, without this very, very strong American support — military, political, of course, diplomatic, at the Security Council and in other areas where the U.S. is quite isolated from world opinion — that without that American support, the Israelis in and of themselves have become much, much weaker. Not so much on inflicting massive human suffering — that is what they’re very good at — but at achieving military, diplomatic, or political kinds of goals on the ground.

To get to your question on Hassan Nasrallah, on Hezbollah and Lebanon, I think it’s fair to say [that] there’s a kind of schizophrenic situation in Lebanon in general, politically. On the one hand, you have half the country that are big supporters of Hezbollah and of the resistance, and then you have another half, which is sort of anti-Hezbollah in its agenda. Not so much in questions of resistance, but in its internal kind of politics.

It’s not that this has a constraint. There are certainly constraints, and Hezbollah and Nasrallah, I think, in particular, are quite attuned to this. They understand that, because the economy has hit rock bottom here, there’s a lot of social problems, a lot of economic problems, there’s a lot of reconstruction eventually to come, a lot of development that needs to come. There’s no government, there’s no president in Lebanon today. There’s a kind of, let’s say, political vacuum that’s taking place, and they’re quite sensitive to that.

But, having said that, that doesn’t mean at all that if the decision is to go to war because of an Israeli provocation, or because of some kind of strategic imperative that they feel they have, that they won’t go to war. In other words, nothing going on domestically in Lebanon will stop, I think, Hezbollah from going to war if they feel that is in their strategic interest, or if they feel they’re put in a position where they have no choice but to go to this, what Amal is calling, this kind of final “great war,” which most people here think is going to happen.

It may not happen today, it may not even happen as part of this particular kind of war. But, eventually, unless something dramatic changes, it just doesn’t seem possible to have this, it’s not sustainable over a longer term to have this kind of Israeli entity which continues to want to expand and, on the other hand, is getting weaker and lashing out even more. And, on the other hand, Hezbollah and other units that are operating inside Lebanon and in the region that are, in a sense, growing in their own stature and their own military might. And that are, as Amal was saying, opposed to the very idea of an aggressive Israeli state, in which it tries to impose its military and political agenda throughout the region. That’s not going to be acceptable.

And so, it’s not just a question of Iran, but it’s a question of many different players within the region, that I think this is kind of important to highlight. 

AS: I fully agree with what Karim is saying about Hezbollah not being deterred by internal considerations, like the economy and political divisions within Lebanon. These have never mattered to Hezbollah, to be honest, in the past, and I think the very fact that something that a lot of media commentators and others are missing is that this is the first time that Hezbollah has actually gone on the offensive. This is what we call “offensive defense.” It’s what Iran calls forward defense strategy.

For Hezbollah to do that is quite bold and confident, I think, because Israel wasn’t attacking Lebanon when this was going on. On October 8th, Hezbollah opened up a front. And, in fact, in previous invasions that Israel has conducted against Gaza, from 2009 onwards, many were sort of expecting Hezbollah to intervene, and it didn’t. And this is the first time in its history it’s actually kind of initiated a war with Israel.

So, I think that in itself is very important to look at, in terms of Hezbollah’s confidence in its military abilities because, obviously, when it did that, it must have expected that Israel could escalate to the point of all-out war.

Although Hezbollah now talks about — and this is of course true — that, on the one hand, it opened this front in order to support Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and kind of relieve pressure of Gaza, the other side of this was also in terms of strategy or objectives. It was to ensure that Israel couldn’t launch a preemptive war on Hezbollah, which Western media had widely reported at the time.

So, I do think it’s important that Hezbollah started this war. It went on the offensive because it expected that Israel would attack it, but also because it’s confident of its military capability, and I think it’s a huge mistake. I think the most dangerous thing would be for Israel and the U.S. to assume that Hezbollah has an aversion to war and, therefore, will fear it. And that’s not true, because the aversion to war does not necessarily translate into a fear of war, or not being ready to wage a war.

So, while I think, yes, obviously it’s in Hezbollah’s interest to open the northern front fully, to move from moderate to high intensity warfare, it is still ready to do so. And I think it believes it would actually succeed in such a war, it does have that confidence. And not only because it has confidence in its own abilities. 

But the other thing we have to look at is that Hezbollah heads, actually, what is called the joint operations room, which all members of the resistance axis share. So, it’s not just Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighting on their own. This is now, currently now — and this has nothing to do with foreknowledge of the October 7 attack — but currently there’s a joint operations room between the various factions across the resistance axis and groups, and Hezbollah is playing the leading role in coordinating these.

Hezbollah has always actually militarily been like a model for other groups, ranging from Ansar Allah in Yemen to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. They’ve always played that role. They’ve played a very important role in training these different groups. I also forgot to mention the Islamic resistance in Iraq, the PMU, Hezbollah has played an important role in fighting alongside these groups, training them. And it’s currently coordinating all the different attacks from these different arenas. And so, the involvement of these other actors, it’s going to increase if there is a northern front that’s opened fully.

And this is something Nasrallah has been threatening since 2017. He said, if Israel wages war on us, it won’t just be us who’s going to fight Israel. It will be — I recall the speech — he said, tens of thousands, and he said even hundreds of thousands of fighters. And these are the same groups, and now we can add more to them, in terms of the Ansar Allah in Yemen, who fought alongside the Syrian regime in Syria.

So, they are going to be the same groups and, in fact, more of them that will join any future great war. And that’s what will make it a great war; it will be a great war because it will be the entire resistance axis. And we’re also talking here about Iran, obviously, not just these other groups.

JS: You know, Amal, it’s very clear that there are factions within Israel that are very dedicated to drawing the United States into a wider war. Certainly Iran has been in the crosshairs of both Democratic and Republican administrations. And, of course, recently there was the anniversary of the assassination in Baghdad of Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general.

And so, you certainly have political factions within Israel that want a full-out war with Iran, but involving the United States. And you’re describing, then, this emerging axis of resistance that increasingly believes that a great war against Israel is not just likely, but inevitable, and you mentioned the hundreds of thousands of fighters that Nasrallah referenced as potentially deploying to fight this war.

What would that look like? I’m not asking you, necessarily, to look into a crystal ball, but based on your scholarship and understanding of the history of the region and the players involved, when Nasrallah or others speak of a “great war,” what does that exactly mean?

AS: Well, I think we’re already seeing it, to be honest. What we’re seeing now is kind of a, I wouldn’t say “great war,” it’s a regional, low-to-moderate intensity war. And it’s something quite unprecedented, I think, because it’s all these sort of, again, non-state or hybrid actors; I mean, obviously, in the case of Ansar Allah, they’re a de facto state now, so I don’t think it’s fair to call them a non-state actor.

So we have this coalition, and it’s the first of its kind. It’s a coalition of resistance forces, from Lebanon to Iraq, to Yemen, and obviously inside Palestine. They are mainly non-state actors, and they are fighting to defend another non-state actor, or non-state actors.

So, already this is a regional war. And, although the front between Lebanon and Israel, I would say, is moderate intensity, it’s not low intensity, because it’s not guerrilla warfare, and it’s not just using primitive weapons like IEDs and so on, which usually characterize low intensity wars. It’s moderate intensity. Ansar Allah also using missiles, ballistic missiles, that’s not really low intensity either, is it?

So we’re talking about a moderate intensity regional war. So, if we imagine it to be a proper high intensity conventional war where these groups totally open their fronts, where Iran also steps in, then we’re talking about something much, much more destructive that could encompass not just these different actors across the resistance axis, but even countries that aren’t really directly involved.

I don’t have much information about this, but like, what would happen to Jordan, for example? And Egypt, and all these other neighboring countries? So, it would sweep across the entire region, and it would affect U.S. forces in the region, and U.S. influence in the region, which is already frankly, almost marginal now, I would say.

So, this is also going to really undermine what’s remaining of the U.S.’s power, whether it’s hard power or soft power. It’s going to completely wipe that out.

KM: Can I add, to compliment that a little bit? I think one of the big worries that I have, and I think others have — in the sense of, will there be a war, will there not be a war, the “great war,” regional war, however you want to term it — in this immediate moment, right now, there’s one actor that has what I think is an interest in expanding the war at this time, which are the Israelis. Or at least a portion of the Israelis, who are these kinds of right-wing settler fanatical types that are in charge of the government today. And I think their incentive is to kind of try to provoke Hezbollah, in this case, into this larger kind of escalation that might then draw the Americans in, and then it sort of it kickstarts [conflict].

And I think one of the reasons is that they have in pushing this kind of genocidal war in Gaza, there’s this other aspect which, I know we’re not talking about this too much now, but the West Bank. And the West Bank is really something that these sector types in particular are looking at, that here’s an opportunity to push Palestinians out of the West Bank, and increase their ethnic cleansing campaign towards the West Bank, which has already begun to an extent. But, to intensify it more, they may need the cover of a big regional war where the U.S. is drawn in, in order to also complete that.

And that touches on what Amal was talking about. That, if that happens, then Jordan itself is going to be quite destabilized, as Palestinians would, in that kind of scenario, possibly be pushed into Jordan. And what’s interesting about this is that all of this is coming into a phase where one thing could try to stop all of this, which is a ceasefire in Gaza. And that’s something that the entire world has been calling for. It’s something that Hassan Nasrallah has called for, it’s something the Lebanese government, for what it’s worth, has called for. It’s what every single country in this region has called for. And all of them have said, if there’s a ceasefire we can then consider it and see what’s going on.

But Gaza is the absolutely most important thing. There’s a genocide going on there. That needs to stop. And, for some reason, the U.S. continues to block any attempts to have a proper ceasefire at the Security Council, and in kind of wider diplomatic circles than that in the region.

There’s something so significant about this, and so significant about a particular U.S. backing of this genocidal war, as though, somehow, the Israelis are going to achieve something politically or diplomatically, which they are unable to do so, they cannot do so. So, within this, this is a concern and a worry about the Israeli incentive to kind of increase this war. 

MH: And Amal, I wanted to ask you, building off what Karim said as well, too, that if you look at the documented evidence of Hezbollah’s military capabilities, by some accounts they have over 150,000 missiles, and many long range missiles, which are directed at Israel, which would be deployed in such a conflict. And, likewise, Iran has a network of proxies, which you discussed, throughout the region which could be activated in the course of a war, and could also lead to destabilization in Egypt, and Jordan, and other countries which Israel has some sort of tentative peace with in the context of such a conflict.

And, at the moment, it still seems that Israel is engaging in very extreme brinkmanship that could start a war with Hezbollah and trigger this broader cascade. Today, it’s Monday, we saw just this morning the assassination of another senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon.

I’m curious. Why does Israel feel that it might want to see such a war, where there could be massive destruction of its own infrastructure, targeting of cities and military assets throughout the country on a scale never seen before? And at a time that the U.S., while still very involved in the region, mainly providing diplomatic cover to Israel, as well as armaments and logistics support to the war in Gaza.

Why would it want to have a conflict now, when the U.S. seems to be trying to pivot away from the region? Does it seem, from Israel’s perspective, this is the last chance it may have to draw the U.S. back into a conflict in the Middle East at a time where it’s distracted in other conflicts? Is that your assessment? I’m curious, what you think.

AS: Yeah, that’s definitely, I think, what’s going on. And, to be fair, we still don’t know 100 percent if, indeed, even today’s assassination of a senior Radwan force — Hezbollah elite — commander. If that was designed to provoke Hezbollah into full all-out war, just like the assassination of the Hamas senior official last week, al-Arouri, we don’t know for sure, but it is increasingly looking like Israel does want to expand this war, it does want to move it up a notch. It’s going very fast up the escalation ladder, so it does look like it’s kind of counting on the U.S. getting drawn in, although, from everything we’ve been reading so far, the U.S. doesn’t seem to want that. It doesn’t want to get involved, and it doesn’t seem to want Israel to open a front with Lebanon. Not out of any kind of humanitarian concerns, but because it fears that Israel would lose.

And, honestly, the U.S. has kind of given it that hope. Forget all the billions of dollars in funding and military aid that it’s received during these past three months alone, the fact that it’s deployed aircraft carriers, and nuclear submarines, and I think over 2,000 Marines now, it does look like that this is something Israel could count on, it could potentially count on this.

So, obviously this is going to present Israel with a golden opportunity to using the word “drag,” to drag, because it would be against the U.S.’s, I think, will at this point to get dragged into such a war, when it’s already got its hands full with Ukraine, when it’s already overstretched everywhere in the region. Obviously, Israel is a settler colony in itself, but we’ve got a unique kind of government in Israel today, which is an extremely ideological right-wing government that doesn’t seem to be very rational, and that’s what’s really concerning. That’s motivated a lot by ideology and bloodlust.

So, when we look at that kind of political context in Israel, and then we look at the U.S. offering the potential of such all-out support, it’s very worrying that the U.S. could be turned into a cobelligerent. So, I do think that is an issue.

Can I just also point something out, start up a new kind of discussion here? You use the word “proxies,” and I kind of take issue with that. I don’t think that’s a very useful term to use about the different members of the resistance axis. I don’t think Hamas is any more a proxy of Iran’s than is Hezbollah or Ansar Allah in Yemen. Is this something we can discuss?

MH: Please, please explain.

JS: Of course, go ahead.

AS: Hezbollah and all the different actors in the resistance axis— Yes, it’s true, they are sort of Iran’s junior partners. And it’s easy to think that, just because they’re non-state actors, then that sort of asymmetry in relations with Iran must make them proxies, but that’s not a very accurate description. All of them are autonomous. All of them make their own decisions, and act in the way they see their interests, at least, or their national interest in Hezbollah’s case, their own self-interest. I don’t see a single case of any of these actors acting in a way that goes against their own interests. I mean, that would be proxy-like behavior.

If Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, Hamas, decide [to] resist Israel, militarily speaking, whether it’s offensively or defensively, whichever way it is, they are not acting in Iran’s interest. They’re acting according to how they see their own interests, so I don’t think the term proxy is very useful here, and I don’t think Iran has that kind of relationship that, say, the U.S. does with some of its much more junior partners. It’s very different.

They’re very organically linked by political ideology, in some cases, religious ideology. They have historical relationships that go back centuries, in fact, in some other cases, decades, so I don’t think this is a very useful way of describing the relationship between them. And it’s quite dangerous, also, politically, because if that’s how policymakers continue to view Iran and these other groups, then they’re going to keep on pressuring Iran to basically compel Hezbollah or Hamas or whomever to change their strategies, and that’s not going to happen. That’s going to be unsuccessful, precisely because they’re not proxies.

JS: I wanted to ask about the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah over the past years. Of course, the drone strike that happened in Beirut and killed a senior Hamas official was a very, very significant escalation on Israel’s part.

But I’m curious about the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah leading up to October 7th, and how it evolved over the years. It was certainly impacted by the war in Syria, and then other political disagreements. 

AS: So, I think, before we look at the relationship between Hezbollah and Hamas, we have to look at the relationship between Hezbollah and Palestinian groups in general.

So, many Hezbollah commanders were in fact members of Fatah back in the 70s, like Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military commander who was assassinated by Israel. Also Mustafa Badreddine, who was also assassinated by Israel. They were members of Fatah’s elite force 17, for example.

There was a relationship between them after Hezbollah was born in 1982, they staged joint operations, and Israel withdrew from parts of Lebanon, it withdrew from Beirut in 1985. And after that, there was a lot more training and joint operations between Fatah and Hezbollah.

They also fought on behalf of the Palestinians in the War of the Camps in the mid-80s. So, the Amal movement, which is also a Shia movement in Lebanon, fought the Palestinians in the mid-80s, and Hezbollah fought alongside the Palestinians, so it was kind of like a civil war as well.

So, they have this history of relations between them, and they never really cut off ties with Fatah, in fact, over the years, although they did develop, down the line, relations with Islamic Jihad. Obviously with Hamas, with the PFLP, and so on. So, this was all ongoing.

Now, in terms of Hamas, I recall in 2002 there was a shipment of arms — it was called the Karine A ship — and Israel intercepted it, and that was armed with, I think, 50 tons of weapons that were destined for Hamas, and Hezbollah was also involved in this. So, that was in 2002, and Hezbollah claimed responsibility for it at the time.

Also, in Egypt, there was a Hezbollah operative who was responsible for infiltrating weapons into Gaza. His name was Sami Shihab, he was arrested by Egypt. Also, Hezbollah came out publicly and claimed responsibility and said, yes, we were, in fact, trying to support Hamas, and preparing for what became the 2008-2009 invasion. So, there is this history.

Obviously, also, you’ve got Hamas officials who, after leaving Qatar and Turkey like al-Arouri, who settled in Lebanon, sought sanctuary there, there were several such officials. Also, you’ve got loads of prisoner exchanges that Hezbollah was involved in, which were coordinated also with Hamas, and which helped release many Palestinian prisoners, like the one in 2004, when Hezbollah was able to secure the release of over 400 Palestinian, and some Lebanese, prisoners. So, there is this precedent of relations.

Now, of course, after that, we saw in 2009, as early on as then, when Hamas bunkers were in the tunnel network, while much more primitive, that did have Hezbollah’s fingerprints on it. And many argued that Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh was sort of the mastermind behind this, and that he was responsible for training and helping Hamas construct this tunnel network.

So, there is that history. They trained in Lebanon, we know that much from different intelligence reports. There’s a history of training, of arming, of coordination. And as I said, now, this joint operations room, of which Hezbollah is a leading part.

Now, in terms of the operation itself, October 7, that doesn’t necessarily mean Hezbollah and Iran had full knowledge of this, just because they enjoy this very close relationship. But it does mean that it’s very likely they were aware that such a strategy was in place to be executed at some point.

JS: Karim, on Monday, the foreign minister of Lebanon, Abdallah Bou Habib, said that Lebanon is ready to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. He stated that Hezbollah forces will not deploy south of the Litani River, and that the Lebanese army would control all of Lebanon up to the border with Israel. And that Hezbollah would disarm. And here’s the full quote that the minister said: he said that Israel, “must fully withdraw from all the Lebanese territories and stop its land, sea, and air violations.”

OK, this kind of stuff happens all the time, this rhetoric and diplomacy. But what’s interesting about it, and what I wanted to ask you is, is Lebanon’s foreign minister, or Lebanon’s government, even able to enforce that type of control over Hezbollah?

KM: It’s a very interesting kind of dynamic, where, of course, on the one hand, down on the ground militarily, no, of course, there’s absolutely no kind of control on what Hezbollah does or doesn’t do on the strategic level, or on the military level. That’s for sure.

If you zoom out a little bit, it’s an interesting relationship that is one of the reasons why Hezbollah ended up becoming more of a political party, joined the Lebanese governments and states. And, in particular, after the 2006 war, where they wanted to ensure that there was this relationship where the state itself, the one thing the state has here — or, in principle anyway — is a sense of legitimizing the right of resistance.

And so, legitimizing Hezbollah as a resistance movement in order to fight with full state backing, whether or not the other political parties like it or not, they always ensure that the government legitimize the right of resistance. And so, therefore, Hezbollah as the implementer of this resistance. So, the army, the resistance and the people sort of all being one unit fighting against, in particular, Israeli attacks, and Israeli violations of Lebanese kind of sovereignty.

So, they’ve always wanted to have a government and a state that backs them up, and an army that also works with them as opposed to sort of take away from their activities in southern Lebanon. So that’s just a kind of important point.

So, the foreign minister is not somebody that is against Hezbollah. There’s somebody this government … It’s a provisional government at this point, it’s a provisional government. There’s no president today in Lebanon. These things have been in negotiation for a while. I doubt there will be any government anytime soon, until this larger regional issue is kind of resolved.

But, in the meantime, the provisional prime minister Najib Mikati, and the foreign minister have repeated this notion, that the first thing that needs to happen is or has to be a ceasefire in Gaza. Once that’s done — and that is a prerequisite, Nasrallah himself has said it, so everybody in Lebanon seems to be on the same page and the same message, which is, Gaza first — that has to stop.

Once that’s resolved, then you have all the political/diplomatic activities that are taking place. We had, you know, Amos Hochstein, who’s the American envoy, basically dealing with Lebanon, and he’s quite close to Biden. And, at the same time, of course, he’s an Israeli national, but that’s a sort of separate point. But he represents Biden in the Lebanon file, and he has been coming and going; in fact, he was in Israel just a few days ago and did not come to Lebanon, because he’s been aware that there’s no point to come to such a conclusion until the Gaza war stops first.

The question about 1701, yes, that’s something which is in all the circles, the U.N. officials and the various European officials that are coming and going. The idea is to say, Resolution 1701, U.N. Resolution 1701, which was what created the cessation of hostilities after the 2006 war here in Lebanon, the idea is to say, well, there is no visible armed activity outside of the Lebanese army, and the U.N. peacekeepers that have been operating in southern Lebanon since 1978.

And that was what the posture was. Between 2006 until October 7th, more or less, there was no visible Hezbollah activities or in-your-face presence in southern Lebanon. They were always there, of course, but they were not visible. UNIFIL was never able to verify that you had Hezbollah activities in southern Lebanon. And so, the idea that’s being hatched is to say, OK, once we get to resolution, once there’s a ceasefire in Gaza, once the diplomatic activity actually starts to work properly, then there will be this implementation — or reimplementation, let’s say — of Resolution 1701, where Hezbollah potentially might just withdraw its visible representation in South Lebanon.

Of course, it’s not going to withdraw everything, but they won’t have their guns out, they won’t have their towers out, their missiles, etc., the more visible stuff. A sort of a return to that point, except that, in addition to that, Israelis would have to withdraw from occupied Lebanese lands.

So, Israel, to this day, still occupies Lebanese lands. There’s the village of Ghajar, there’s other so-called “disputed points” along what’s called the “blue line” of separation between Israel and Lebanon, that the Lebanese government has since 2006 made the point over and over and over that it absolutely expects to recover that land. So, the idea is to say that the Israelis would have to commit to withdrawing totally from all occupied lands, which is what Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have been calling for, and which is also contained within Resolution 1701. That’s on the one hand.

On the other hand, there has to be a commitment, a kind of international guaranteed commitment, again, that Israeli violations, drones, aircraft, ships, everything that, on a daily basis, they have violated for decades — and, even after 2006, on a daily basis, they violate Lebanese sovereignty — that that absolutely has to stop. And, if that happens, then yes, there would supposedly be an agreement where Hezbollah withdraws its visibility in terms of its arms for the period.

Yeah, I think this is what’s being hatched, this is the idea. This is what Hochstein as the American envoy is trying to push for here. I think it’s certainly what the Lebanese government would like to do. The Lebanese government would be very happy for things to return to a relative calm. As I kind of mentioned before, there’s a total economic breakdown in Lebanon, there’s a social breakdown, and it’s quite kind of known everywhere here that Lebanon will never be allowed to build up again. It won’t be allowed to reconstruct, it won’t be allowed to develop. Its banks will not be reformulated and restructured, the financial situation, the economic situation.

None of this will work without the U.S.’s blessing, and without a kind of regional plan in which some of the Gulf states get involved, in which the U.S. doesn’t impose more sanctions on Lebanon. So all of this is kind of tied together, and the Lebanese government would very much like that to happen.

Whether that’s going to happen anytime soon, I’m not sure. But I’m pretty sure that nothing will happen until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza, and the Israelis end up withdrawing from all territories or occupied territories in South Lebanon. 

MH: Amal, I want to ask, as well: the Israeli defense minister Yoav Galant gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal this week, and he sent what seemed like a very stark threat to the Lebanese people in general.

First, he said that, regarding Hezbollah, there needs to be the ability for Hezbollah to withdraw from the border, such that Israeli civilians who have evacuated the northern part of their country can return back to their homes. There have been several tens of thousands of Israelis who have evacuated from the border near Lebanon in the north.

In response to this conflict and the escalation of tensions, he said something very, very chilling, which is that, specifically the people of Beirut, that if they see what is happening in Gaza today, they should know that the Israeli military can “copy and paste that,” quote-unquote, to Beirut as well, seeming to imply that the same mass destruction which is taking place in Gaza City at the moment could be visited upon the Lebanese people as well.

Amal, can you tell us a bit about Israel’s history of this type of military offensive in Lebanon? And, something specifically that I’m sure you’re familiar with that our listeners would like to know about as well, too, which is the Dahiya Doctrine, and how it’s been applied by Israel in Lebanon and other contexts in the past.

AS: What’s interesting about this is, Israel had for years been sort of threatening all its adversaries that it would apply the Dahiya doctrine; not just Hezbollah, but also Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And now they’re calling it “the Gaza doctrine,” and that they’ll apply the Gaza doctrine to Lebanon, which is absurd, because it’s the same doctrine of the disproportionate use of force against civilian targets.

And when people use terms like “indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas,” I think this is a misnomer, because it’s actually very discriminatory. They deliberately target civilian targets, basically. I don’t know if you saw the 972 Mag article, this was very eye opening in terms of how strategically designed this is, that they hit civilian targets with the intention of pressuring these groups, whether they’re Hezbollah or Hamas, to protect their populations by surrendering or submitting, and it never works.

So, not only is it in the case of Palestinians, it’s genocide, basically. In the case of Lebanon, it’s war crimes. It’s also ineffective, it’s proven ineffective. So, it’s quite bizarre that Israel would once again threaten with the same strategy that it relied upon in 2006. And, while obviously the casualty toll was much lower than in Lebanon, it was still quite devastating, but nonetheless did not yield any kind of returns for Israel. It couldn’t even get Hezbollah to stop its rocket fire, let alone eradicate Hezbollah, which was its initial aim. It wasn’t able to change anything on the ground, and it looks like this is going to be the same in Gaza.

So, threatening with the same strategy that they’ve employed before, whether we call it the Dahiya Doctrine or the Gaza doctrine, is just an admission, really, of Israel’s intention to use — in the case of Palestine, genocidal warfare, or in the case of Lebanon, war crimes — to no avail. So I honestly don’t know what the purpose of that is, but it hasn’t worked before, and it’s not going to work now. 

JS: We only have a couple of minutes left, but I want to get both of you to respond to this.

Joe Biden has been in political office longer than almost any American politician. He’s spent a half a century in either the U.S. Senate, or being vice president or being president. And, throughout his political career, which was launched on a national scale in 1973, when he was elected to the Senate, he has described himself as a committed Zionist, as Israel’s best Catholic friend.

We’ve done many episodes of this program dealing with Biden’s defense and promotion of some of Israel’s worst crimes over the decades. In fact, he’s been one of the premier American officials stepping forward when no one else wanted to get the microphone to defend Israel’s conduct. At times he has gone to more extreme positions than even the prime ministers of Israel.

One notorious story from 1982 when the invasion of Lebanon was underway and Menachem Begin goes to Washington. Upon returning to Israel, [he] tells a story of one young senator who stands up and gives an impassioned defense of killing women and children, and that senator was Joe Biden. We’ve seen Biden’s Secretary of State pay lip service to the idea that Israel maybe needs to tone down the mass murder of civilians a little bit, and then, on the other hand, circumventing basic congressional procedures in the United States to rush through more munitions to Israel as the civilian death toll has just skyrocketed. And, of course, every time Blinken goes to the region, and goes to Israel, it seems like Israel ratchets up the killing a little bit more, every time that guy gets back on the plane to go back to Washington.

But I wanted to get both of you to set Joe Biden in the context of other U.S. administrations on Israel, and how Biden has approached this particular onslaught against the people of Gaza and, increasingly, the people of the West Bank, and now posturing toward Lebanon. But set Biden in a historical context compared to other U.S. administrations on these issues.

KM: I grew up in Beirut, and I remember very well the Israeli invasion of 1982. And I remember for many, many years, for us, Ronald Reagan was this kind of devil who had enabled, and encouraged, and strongly supported Israel’s invasion, which resulted in many, many thousands of innocent civilians being killed, Lebanese and Palestinian, and a kind of destruction of Lebanon, and the siege of Beirut for three months, and all sorts of problems and destruction. And this was in the middle of a civil war, as it was, that was to last a very, very long time. And, in fact, lead to the — as Amad had said earlier — lead to the creation of Hezbollah itself, and the Lebanese resistance.

In retrospect, and I have gone back and looked at some of the debates, since I worked quite a bit on questions of the United Nations and looked at the different debates: When you go back and look at what Reagan and his administration were saying, Reagan himself, once the Israelis kind of pushed through and committed various massacres of civilians, Reagan was, in retrospect, was surprisingly — at least outwardly, at least officially outwardly — saying, this needs to stop, that this is unacceptable and it needs to stop. And then they put their pressure on the Israelis to finally come to a deal with the PLO, and then, later, with the Lebanese government.

I’m not saying it was a great deal for the Palestinians or the Lebanese, but at least they ended up putting a lot of pressure on the Israelis to stop, considering that the Israelis wanted to push a lot further, that they wanted to occupy Lebanon a lot more, and do a lot more damage.

In retrospect, when you compare Reagan now to, for example, Joe Biden today, it’s actually shocking. The extent to which Joe Biden has been— It’s not about being a Zionist. I mean, I don’t think there are too many U.S. presidents that have not been Zionists. The extent to which Biden has gone to support and to encourage a genocidal war in Gaza has been shocking. Even to, I would say, even to the most strident critic of American foreign policy in the region, I think it’s been shocking. And this is even after Trump, and after George Bush, after September 11th, I mean, the extent to which he has gone to support Israelis actively in a genocidal war, I think, has been shocking.

And so, I would say he, in that sense, has been the absolute worst president in that sense in this region; in this sub region, anyway. I mean, Iraq is a different story, but certainly in this sub region.

I also think it’s important to mention something else. I mean, he is on record, as you just mentioned, talking about, I think you said he was the biggest Catholic supporter of Zionism, or something along these lines. Well, I think Biden and many of the evangelical Christians in the United States forget where Christianity comes from, and forget that it’s the Palestinians that are Christians, and that Jesus came from Palestine and from this region itself. And there’s Catholics, and Greek Orthodox, and Protestants, and everyone else that are Christians, Armenians that are suffering under Israeli occupation, that have been suffering even in Gaza. There are churches that have been bombed, many Christians that have been killed. 

I hate to talk in this kind of way, but there’s this sense of support for an Israel that itself is oppressing and occupying Christians throughout Palestine, and Lebanon, and other areas like this. So, it’s extraordinary on many, many levels, the kind of damage that Joe Biden has had in terms of the image of the United States in the region, the decline in the U.S.’s standing in the region, and its ability to be a positive actor on almost any level, I think, has diminished hugely.

JS: Amal, we’ll give you the last minute here, and the last word.

AS: Yeah, I agree with everything Karim is saying. Apparently Reagan even called it “a holocaust,” which the Israelis took offense to when they invaded Lebanon in 1982. So, that’s an interesting comparison as well.

Obviously, when we look at Trump, for example, we thought that was kind of like the height of U.S.-Israeli ties, in terms of the Abraham Accords that Trump pushed through, relocating the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in violation of international law. But somehow, as Karim said, Biden has actually gone many notches beyond that. And I think this is, yes, partly due to his own ideological convictions, but I think we have to look at something which is very important here, and it’s that I think any U.S. president may have taken this kind of,  I wouldn’t say unprecedented, but rather extreme stand.

And that’s because Israel after October 7, I think it clearly was such a spectacular failure for Israel — not just in terms of intelligence, but militarily — is that the U.S. is, I think, very concerned, as are Israel’s other allies, and Israel itself, that it might not have the sort of longevity, in terms of remaining as it is, as a Zionist regime, as a Zionist state, as a military state that it thought it had. It’s no longer invincible. I mean, that illusion was shattered in 2006 anyway, but I think even the very idea of Israel being able to remain in the state it currently is, as an ethno-supremacist state with this very militarized society. And, in terms of its military power, it’s existential for Israel, and I do think any U.S. President may have gone this far in terms of openly, unashamedly, unabashedly abetting and aiding Israel and its genocidal war. I do think this might not be unique to Biden.

JS: Amal Saad, thank you so much for joining us on Intercepted.

AS: Thanks for having me.

JS: Karim Makdisi, joining us from Beirut, thank you as well.

KM: Thanks a lot.

MH: That was Amal Saad, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, and Karim Makdisi, an associate professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut.

JS: And that does it for this episode of Intercepted.

Intercepted is a production of The Intercept. José Olivares is the lead producer. Our supervising producer is Laura Flynn. Roger Hodge is Editor-in-Chief of The Intercept. Rick Kwan mixed our show. Legal Review was performed by David Bralow and Elizabeth Sanchez. This episode was transcribed by Leonardo Faierman. Our theme music, as always, was composed by DJ Spooky. 

MH: If you want to support our work, you can go to theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter what the size, makes a real difference. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to Intercepted, and definitely do leave us a rating and review wherever you find our podcasts. It helps other listeners to find us as well.

JS: If you want to give us additional feedback, you can email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Thanks so much for joining us. Until next time, I’m Jeremy Scahill.

MH: And I’m Murtaza Hussain.