Following its well-known violation of international legality, Israel has assassinated Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah. This represents a qualitative leap with unforeseeable consequences, and is not a clichéd phrase, since what happened disrupts the status quo which, better or worse, has balanced relations with Israel in the region for almost two decades. It is the time that Ehud Olmert, former Israeli prime minister, has called “17 years of peace.” This is peace in the Middle East.
In his calculation, Olmert starts from the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the first by Israel’s delegation with Iran, Olmert himself being prime minister, and which the ultranationalists in the Government today considered a defeat to be reversed. They have been applying to this since October 7.
The Israeli Army, very given to giving eloquent names to its operations, has called the one it launched on the suburbs of Beirut to assassinate Nasrallah the “New Order.” As bombastic as it may sound, it has its logic, even if it is that of a new disorder. Nothing in the Middle East changes very radically. History is slow in the region. The previous leader of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, was also assassinated by Israel, in 1992. And Hezbollah became stronger, also more political.
He status quo The current situation consisted of an unrecognized but latent balance between Arab resistance and the Israeli colonial order. It was based on a game of unequal forces between Israel’s military power and the ability to exert pressure on the ground of parastatal actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The Netanyahu Government has always considered that the dismantling of both must go together. And given the difficulty of ending Hamas in Gaza, he has gone after Hezbollah. He has done it freely, without, at least, the acquiescence of Washington, since the Pentagon has denied that it had been previously informed of the operation.
Many Lebanese, and Arabs in general, consider Nasrallah a hero of the resistance. No one can dispute his charisma and the leadership he has exercised in the fight against the Israeli occupation: first of his own country, from which Israel had to withdraw in 2000, and then of Palestine. Today everyone pays tribute to him and chants his name followed by his last nickname: “Fallen for Jerusalem and Palestine.” It sounds rhetorical, but it is no less true. With Nasrallah an era ends. A generational change is opening up that must also come to Israel, if it is interested in any future of peace.
What should not be ruled out is that the fight against Israeli colonization has ended. It has never been like this since 1948. The risks that Israel has been incurring are maximum: against international legality, mocking the democratic order, disrupting the status quo regional. And all this in a world panorama so unstable that nothing in political terms is guaranteed for the future. Not even the immediate one.
Knowing what happens outside is understanding what will happen inside, don’t miss anything.
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