The Journal. - Will Israel Face a Second Front?

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

As Israel’s war with Hamas enters its third week, increased violence in the West Bank and on the border with Lebanon is fueling concerns of a larger regional war. WSJ’s Sune Rasmussen reports on Iran’s support of three militant groups: Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Further Listening: - What We Know About the Gaza Hospital Blast  - The Hostage Crisis in Gaza   Further Reading: - Northern Israel Prepares for Possible War With Hezbollah  - Violence Surges in the West Bank Following Hamas Attack on Israelis  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Israel has spent more than two weeks fighting Hamas in Gaza. But beyond Hamas, Israel is facing growing threats from other militant groups on its borders. There's the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is fighting alongside Hamas. And then, to the north in Lebanon, there's Hezbollah. All three of these groups are designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. And as fighting increases, there are growing concerns about a wider war. Here's our colleague Suna Rasmussen. All of these groups, what they have in common is that they're willing to fight Israel if it comes down to it.

And the question now that everyone is sort of pondering in Israel and also in Lebanon is whether Hezbollah is going to engage directly with Israel in an all-out war and open a second front against Israel. Because that would mean not just a second front against Israel, but it would probably mean a regional war that draws in major powers, including Iran and the U.S., which would come to Israel's defense. All three groups, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, have a common ally. They all get weapons and significant financial support from the nation of Iran. And if Iran wanted to, it could ramp up a conflict here

and open a second or even third front against Israel in this war. And if Iran or its allies decide to do that, we have a completely unprecedented situation on our hands. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Monday, October 23rd. Coming up on the show, Israel's battles beyond Gaza and how they tie back to Iran.

Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. Relations between Israel and Iran have been tense for decades. Iran and Israel are mortal enemies. I think Israel believes that Iran is intent on its destruction, and I think Iran thinks the same about Israel. And their national security strategies are to a large extent aimed at protecting their country against their enemy. I think the history of Israel in the Middle East is so fraught and controversial. It was Arabs who were displaced when the state of Israel was established.

And I think Iran has also managed to kind of tap into this Arab anger against Israel and sometimes actually stoke it. And we've seen Iran encourage anti-Israeli protests in the streets of Arab cities. The U.S. State Department says Iran supplies Hamas and other Palestinian militants with about $100 million per year. And earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran helped Hamas plan its October 7th attack on Israel. An Iranian official denied

that allegation, but said the country supports Hamas. U.S. officials say they haven't seen evidence of Iran's involvement. Regardless of how deeply Iran was involved in planning the attack on October 7th, there's no doubt that this plays into Iran's hand and is to Iran's benefit. And I would also say that it's very likely that it had knowledge of the attack before it took place. While Israel's attention is mainly on Hamas right now, there's another, even more powerful group that Iran funds. Hezbollah. Hezbollah is located to the north of Israel, in Lebanon.

And since the war with Hamas began, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has picked up too. Hezbollah is largely an Iranian creation. And Hezbollah over the past 15 years has grown really quite strong. It's very heavily armed, by far the best armed of Iran's allied militias. On Thursday, Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israeli military sites and towns, injuring three residents. Israeli military sites and towns, injuring three residents. Israel's military responded with airstrikes inside Lebanon,

killing 15 Hezbollah fighters and four civilians. The government also ordered the evacuation of over a dozen Israeli towns close to the Lebanese border. Hezbollah said it will respond to attacks on Palestinians, and the group said it is ready to intervene more forcefully if Israel carries out a ground invasion of Gaza. Israel's defense minister has threatened to, quote, return Lebanon to the Stone Age if Hezbollah escalates the conflict. What do you think the likelihood is of this escalating into an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah? I think it comes down to whether or not Hezbollah and Israel are able to maintain this kind of

slowly escalating tit-for-tat shelling of each other that's taking place in northern Israel and southern Lebanon at the moment without crossing any red lines, visited northern Israel and visited a town that was being evacuated. And people there are very afraid. They believe that a war can happen. But I think both sides are intent on avoiding an all-out conflict because it would be incredibly destructive. The last war that Israel and Lebanon fought was in 2006, and it killed about 1,500 people on both sides, most of them in Lebanon. It was highly traumatizing

for both sides. So both sides, I think, are interested in avoiding that. If for nothing else, from a Hezbollah point of view, if they were to engage in a conflict with Israel, it would probably decimate the arsenal of missiles and rockets and weapons that have accumulated over the past two decades. What's Iran's objective, though, by funding Hamas and funding Hezbollah? What are they hoping to accomplish? I think Iran's overall strategy in the Middle East for the past 40 years has been to exert a level of hegemony in the

region, ultimately with the goal of protecting its own national sovereignty and security. And Iran's main enemy in the Middle East is Israel. And Iran is in a situation now where it has this whole network of allies across the Middle East, and it both helps it exert military dominance and cultural dominance in many of these areas. But I think most importantly, it serves as a deterrence against its enemies, whether that be Israel or the U.S. Coming up, what Iran is trying to accomplish with the other militant group it funds, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. classic with a vibrant taste of fresh lemons. The perfect balance of sweet and sour with a crisp, zesty edge. Welcome to The Garage, the place of refreshing hard lemonade. Available at the LCBO. Must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Look for new value programs when

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for details. The third militant group Iran funds is called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Islamic Jihad is a group that was founded over four decades ago, inspired by the Islamic revolution in Iran. So they are what you could almost call a proxy of Iran, where Iran uses this group to destabilize the West Bank and to have kind of an armed edge against Israel. Both the U.S. and Israel have blamed the group for the blast at a hospital in Gaza last week, which they say was caused by a misfired rocket. The Islamic Jihad denied it. Although it's also in Gaza, the Islamic Jihad is strongest in the West Bank.

The West Bank is a Palestinian territory nestled between northern Israel and the neighboring country of Jordan. It's about the size of Delaware, and about 3 million people live there. The West Bank is geographically divided from Gaza, but socially, culturally, historically, it is the same entity. And people in the West Bank and Gaza are very closely related. There are families who live sort of separated in the West Bank and Gaza. So whatever happens in Gaza, like the bombardments we're seeing now, that will have a sort of massive

emotional impact on people living in the West Bank. And there's a lot of anger, but also grief in the West Bank over what's happening now in Gaza. And what's the relationship like between the West Bank and Israel? It's always tense between the West Bank and Israel. Palestinians in the West Bank live under tight security restrictions. Their freedom of movement is often restricted. We've seen after the Hamas attack on October 7th, we've seen Israeli security forces cut off main highways and try to limit the flow of Palestinians into certain population centers and into sites that could become flashpoints for protests.

The Islamic Jihad doesn't control the West Bank like Hamas does in Gaza. It's primarily occupied by Israel and partly governed by a political party called the Palestinian Authority. But the Islamic Jihad does have a strong presence there. And for years, settlers from Israel have moved into the West Bank, causing tension with the Palestinians who live there. Since the war with Hamas broke out on October 7th, tension between the settlers and Palestinians has escalated.

According to Palestinian authorities, Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians in the West Bank, including one incident where settlers killed two men at a funeral. It's definitely prompted protests in the West Bank, but I think it's also prompted Israeli security forces to crack down on what they see as potential sources of unrest in the West Bank. The first week after the October 7th Hamas attack was the deadliest, in fact, the deadliest week since 2005, since at least 2005,

for West Bank Palestinians. And over the weekend, two people were killed in the West Bank after Israel hit a mosque in an airstrike. The Israeli army said militants were using the mosque to plan an attack. Since October 7th, more than 90 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority's official news agency. Meanwhile, Suna says Iran has been sending more weapons to the region over the past few years. Suna's reporting shows that Iran is sending many of these weapons through neighboring Jordan. I went to Jordan and I sort of looked at the border with Syria.

And the reason I went to Jordan was to investigate flows of weapons. Jordanian officials told me that smugglers traffic a wide range of weapons over the Syrian border and into the West Bank. So handguns and M4-style assault rifles, explosives like TNT, hand grenades, which are going from Iranian allies in Iraq and Syria through the Jordanian border and into the West Bank, where they help arm groups like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is an ally of Iran. And how are those weapons actually getting across the border?

Like, are they just being driven in giant trucks? Yeah, some of the weapons are driven in trucks and hidden the way you hide weapons when you smuggle them across the border. There is an official border crossing. And as a fairly new thing, smugglers have also started using drones. And these security officials that I met

in Jordan, they showed me how one commercial drone that's quite easy to operate can carry either four hand grenades or two assault rifles. And they're very difficult to detect in the desert. And these guys that I spoke to said that they basically only catch drones by chance. It's impossible to just monitor the entire border for drones. According to security officials in Jordan and Israel, the flow of weapons has definitely picked up over the past two years and especially the past 12 months, where they say that the number of seizures has increased, but also just the number of weapons that they confiscate every time they stop smugglers has increased. The weapons that go into Jordan from Syria are mostly of Iranian provenance,

so either produced in Iran or smuggled into Jordan by allies of Iran. And given the strength of the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, how important is that group for Iran and its interest in the region? I think if we see Israel accomplish its goal or come close to accomplishing its goal in Gaza, which is to eradicate Hamas, the Islamic Jihad is going to be even more important to Iran

because then that is going to be the dominant militant group in the Palestinian territories. And it is a closer ally of Iran. And Iran can use it to do its bidding in the Palestinian territories. Is there a chance that Iran might get involved directly? I don't think at this point Iran is going to get involved directly. Miscalculations happen. But if the war is kind of contained to Hamas against Israel and then some skirmishes on the border between Lebanon and Israel that don't escalate, I don't think we'll see Iran directly involved with troops. I don't think so. What does all this say about the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel?

about the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel. Over the past many years, we've seen Israel engage in various campaigns against Iran to try and limit Iran's ability to threaten it and to attack it. But what we saw on October 7th was that allies of Iran in Gaza were able to deal Israel its worst blow, single blow probably, of its existence. And Israel is responding accordingly.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said that this is going to be a war that generations will remember and they will completely eradicate Hamas. And they've said that it's going to be very brutal. And I think that's what we're seeing now. So it's a turning point in Israel's relationship with the Palestinians, because we haven't seen this kind of offensive in Gaza before, not to this extent. And I think,

and this speaks to Iran's military influence in the region and its continued ability, frankly, to threaten Israel in the Middle East. That's all for today. Monday, October 23rd. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Fatima Abdul-Karim, Benoit Falcón, Stephen Kalin, Diane Nissenbaum, and Summer Saeed. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.