By Naftali Granot

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s public threats to attack Israel’s Karish offshore gas rig in the Mediterranean Sea, if its demands over the demarcation of the maritime border agreement currently being negotiated between Israel and Lebanon are not met, constitute a significant escalation in Hezbollah’s aggressive rhetoric.

This escalation has the potential to lead to a new miscalculation that could spark a new war between Israel and Hezbollah. In 2006, Nasrallah miscalculated how Israel would react to a cross-border raid in which three soldiers were killed and abducted the bodies of two others, sparking the Second Lebanon War.  

In an arrogant television appearance recently to mark 40 years since the founding of Hezbollah, Nasrallah stated his organization’s missiles are capable of striking targets anywhere in Israel and in typical fashion prophesized that the end of the Jewish state is nigh.

At the same time, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps issued a threat of its own, stating that Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of rockets in Lebanon are aimed at Israel and if Israel makes a single mistake, Hezbollah will unleash its projectiles against it.

Although the Israeli public has become inured to Nasrallah’s heated declarations, his latest threats about Israeli gas production nevertheless constitute an extraordinary escalation, compared to the more routine ‘equation of responses’ that Hezbollah seeks to enforce on Israel in the context of mutual deterrence.

This is a reflection of Hezbollah’s growing confidence in the military power that it has acquired.

Unlike in the past, Nasrallah has now unleashed concrete threats against the strategically-important Israeli offshore gas production platforms and Israeli gas exports to Europe. His threats reflect the understanding that the Israeli economy is dependent on gas production for continued growth and bring to mind the famous saying that a gun that appears in the first act will go off in the third. 

The widespread assessment of Nasrallah’s threats is that they are aimed at domestic Lebanese consumption against the background of the Lebanese economic crisis and the country’s impending bankruptcy. In addition, the interpretation goes, these threats are an attempt to preserve Hezbollah’s grip on the national decision-making process, despite the organization losing ground in the last round of elections.

Nasrallah is well aware of the public criticism directed against Hezbollah over rampant corruption, which led for example to the 2020 Beirut port blast disaster, as well as over Hezbollah’s aggressive conduct that threatens the security of Lebanon.  Significant swaths of the Lebanese population object to Iran’s grip on power in the country through Hezbollah.

The public cognitive campaign that Hezbollah is waging against Israel is based on its assessment that Israel is in the midst of a deep internal crisis and loss of sovereignty, as expressed by frequent elections and chronic political instability, representing a timely opportunity to escalate threat levels. 

Nasrallah’s self-confidence relies on his assessment that Hezbollah is in a win-win situation since so long as the U.S.-mediated negotiations between Israel and Lebanon over maritime borders continue, this can be presented as a Hezbollah achievement that will preserve his dominant influence over the Lebanese political system and grant public legitimacy for the continued existence of an independent military arsenal that is not subordinate to the Lebanese state.

At the same time, it would be overly naïve to believe that Nasrallah’s latest maneuver is independent and that it relies purely on domestic Lebanese calculations without any connection to Iran. If we have learned anything about the absolute reliance of Hezbollah on Iran, it is clear that it was conducted in full coordination and with the authorization of Iran as part of Tehran’s long-term war against Israel.

Hezbollah’s threats should therefore also be seen as part of an Iranian maneuver designed to deter Israel from continuing with its alleged covert campaign against the Iranian nuclear program. The threats should also be seen as a response to public Israeli threats to conduct a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program should diplomatic talks between world powers and Iran fail to revive the JCPOA agreement, a development that could lead to Iran obtaining nuclear threshold status.

In this context, it is worthwhile remembering that Iran’s longstanding strategy is to surround Israel with terror organizations, chief among them Hezbollah, and arm them with an array of missiles and other advanced weapons in order to deter Israel from attacking Iran, or to exact a heavy price from it should it do so.

It is therefore possible to define the current threats by Nasrallah against the Israeli gas platforms as a strategic warning of war -- since they contain all of the basic components of such an alert, including intentions, capabilities, and timing -- if Israel ignores Hezbollah’s threats and begins gas production as planned in September.

The time has come for the Israeli public to internalize the fact that there has been an ongoing erosion of Israeli deterrence, and a process of change in the strategic balance of power that is being led by Iran and Hezbollah, and that sooner or later, Israel and Hezbollah will find themselves on an additional and inevitable military collision course.

Beyond the threat to Israeli gas production, Iran, through proxies like Hezbollah and, as the latest escalation in Gaza demonstrated, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, presents an unprecedented threat to the Israeli home front through a large and growing array of precision missiles. In case of war, these would cause severe damage to strategic targets and population centers, in a manner that will harm Israel’s ongoing ability to function and provide basic citizens to its citizens.

It is reasonable to assume that a solution will be found to the Lebanese Israeli maritime border issue with American mediation, in a manner that will prevent an immediate clash and which will allow Nasrallah to claim a cognitive victory, marketing himself as the one who forced Israel to agree to an improved agreement for dividing up gas resources under the sea. 

But should Lebanon harden its bargaining position under Hezbollah pressure, and Nasrallah struggles to de-escalate, the chance of another miscalculation that can lead to a military clash arises, similar to the miscalculation that occurred in 2006, when Nasrallah authorized an operation to kidnap IDF soldiers on the Israeli – Lebanese border.

A decision by Hezbollah to harm the gas rig could provide legal legitimacy in the international court of opinion, as well as in Israel, for a preemptive strike on the whole of the military array of Hezbollah in Lebanon, to remove a significant threat hanging over the Israeli home front – and before Hezbollah amasses a critical mass of hundreds of precision missiles.

The IDF is able to destroy most of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in Lebanon, and it is better to enter a conflict forced on us sooner rather than deal with a severe threat at a higher price later.

Weakening Hezbollah by severely harming its military capabilities serves Israel also against the existential threat that it faces in the form of the Iranian nuclear project. It is better for Israel to deal with Hezbollah aggression today as opposed to at a time when Iran becomes a nuclear-capable state that would deter Israel from dealing with the near threat posed by Hezbollah.

Naftali Granot concluded his intelligence career as Deputy Director of the Mossad in 2007. He joined the Mossad in 1982 and served in Lebanon and various western countries. In 2004, he was the recipient of the highest security decoration awarded by the President of the State of Israel. Read full bio here.