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Are Israel and Hezbollah escalating their conflict to avoid war?

Are Israel and Hezbollah escalating their conflict to avoid war?

Last updated on: September 25, 2024 at 6:23 am by Jim Denison

Are Israel and Hezbollah escalating their conflict to avoid war? 2024-09-25T06:23:56-05:00 Jim Denison

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Hezbollah fired a missile at Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters near Tel Aviv today, claiming it is responsible for the assassination of several of the group’s leaders. Alerts sent residents scrambling into shelters as the missile approached; Israel said its air defenses intercepted the missile. This after Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah commander Tuesday and struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets the day before.

The US is sending more troops to the Middle East as Hezbollah and Israel continue to launch waves of strikes in the worst violence since their 2006 war.

And yet, as the Associated Press reports, “no one is calling it a war.”

The reason points to a way forward in this escalating conflict, one with ramifications for all of us, wherever we live and whatever challenges we face today.

What each side is seeking

Writing for Foreign Policy, Near East scholar Hanin Ghaddar notes: “Israel could be escalating today to avoid war; that is, to push Hezbollah to accept the only diplomatic solution on the table.” This solution would require Hezbollah to delink Lebanon from Gaza, accept a separate cease-fire agreement with Israel, withdraw its military presence to north of the Litani River (roughly eighteen miles from the border), and allow displaced Israelis to return safely to the northern region of their country.

Israelis describe their strategy as “de-escalation through escalation.”

Hezbollah, for its part, seeks to pressure Israel to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas, using missile strikes to displace thousands of Israelis while avoiding attacks on large civilian populations that could provoke a wider war.

Both sides know that a ground war would be extremely devastating. Hezbollah possesses thousands of precision-guided missiles and drones capable of inflicting great damage on Israeli troops and the civilian population, while Israel’s air superiority could cripple Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure.

And so, both are using conflict to prevent a greater conflict. This strategy is not limited to the Middle East.

What the Bill of Rights illustrates

Humans respond to the reality of conflict in three ways.

First, most governments seek to legislate morality, as the US Bill of Rights passed on this day in 1789 illustrates. However, human laws cannot change human hearts, as the litany of illegal activities reported in each day’s news makes clear.

Second, we prepare for conflict in advance so as to prevent it or mitigate its consequences. Experts are warning, for example, of the need to respond to the “potential for near-term war” posed by an escalating alliance between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. However, as the atrocities of October 7 demonstrate, fallible humans cannot infallibly predict the future.

Third, when aggression does come, we counter it with aggression in hopes of preventing further aggression. We incarcerate and even execute some criminals to keep them from committing further crimes. We attack enemies who attack us to keep them from escalating their attacks on us.

This is because we have no agency for changing the human heart. Israel must defend itself against its enemies because it cannot convince them theologically and ideologically that the Jewish state is not the enemy of Islam and the Palestinian people.

As long as there is life on this fallen planet, there will be misused free will and the sin it produces. Not because this is the will of God, but because it is the will of man.

As a result, resolving conflict between humans ultimately requires transformation beyond human capacity.

“When you change a thousand minds”

Only God can change the human heart: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. . . . And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26, 28). He does this when we make Christ our Lord and his Spirit comes to reside within us (1 Corinthians 3:16).

One of the results of the Spirit’s work in our lives is the “fruit” of peace with God, others, and ourselves (Galatians 5:22). Such peace is unavailable anywhere else.

We can have peace with God only because the Spirit convicts us of our sins and leads us to salvation in Christ (John 16:8).
We can have peace with others only because the Spirit empowers us to forgive and seek forgiveness (cf. Ephesians 4:30–32).
We can have peace with ourselves only because God fills us with “all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

This is why C. S. Lewis observed:

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Conversely, when we experience the peace of the Spirit, we are empowered to share that peace with others, serving as catalysts for moral, spiritual, and cultural transformation. The author Daniel Quinn was right: “When you defeat a thousand opponents, you still have a thousand opponents. When you change a thousand minds, you have a thousand allies.”

The bumper sticker says it well: “Know God, know peace. No God, no peace.”

Will you “know peace” today?

Wednesday news to know:

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” —St. Francis of Assisi

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