In an interview with Infobae, the writer and specialist analyzed the current situation in the region and the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. He also referred to the growing anti-Semitism.
By Lucas Goyret
Following Hamas' brutal terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the Middle East has once again been in a constant state of turmoil. Just hours after the massacre perpetrated by the Palestinian extremist group, other insurgent movements such as Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis launched attacks against the Jewish state.
The Israeli army launched a strong response with a military incursion into Gaza and, in recent months, into Lebanon, with the aim of destroying all infrastructure and weapons of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Its relentless bombings hit the extremists hard: Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas, was killed in Gaza, while Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, was killed in an airstrike in Beirut. Israeli forces also managed to eliminate the leaders of both groups. In light of this scenario, Israel and Hezbollah recently agreed to a ceasefire with the mediation of the United States.
Gabriel Ben-Tasgal is a renowned journalist, writer and political scientist specializing in the Middle East. In conversation with Infobae He analyzed the current situation in the region. He warned that he does not expect this agreement to last for long, although he clarified: “It may be that Hezbollah is so devastated after the attacks that it would be in its interest to comply with it.”
At the same time he highlighted the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. In his opinion, the Republican “It will bring more calm than war” to the Middle East.
He also referred to the obvious increase in anti-Semitism after October 7. In this regard, he did not hesitate to affirm that It is the time of greatest threat and danger for Jews since the Holocaust.
– How do you view the recent agreement between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon?
-I think it's more of an agreement between Israel and the United States. The Democratic administration put a lot of pressure on Israel. For example, threatening it that if it didn't accept what they were mediating, then they would impose some kind of sanctions, such as limiting the flow of weapons that Israel needs. So, faced with that possibility, the number that comes to mind is resolution 2334. Before passing power to Trump in 2018, Barack Obama approved, promoted or did not veto resolution 2334, which says that all territory beyond the green line of 67 is occupied territory. That is a political decision. Because from a legal point of view it is debatable whether that is so. It is a way of taking revenge on Netanyahu, I think, for the fact that he did not support him in the nuclear agreement with Iran and that he dared to go to the American Congress challenging Obama. So I think it is a way of settling accounts with Netanyahu and with the government of Israel. I think that Israel does not want exactly the same thing to happen. So if the Democrats come and say, “This has to be done,” and they have 60 days left until Trump takes office, I don’t think it’s that problematic. The question is whether tactically that agreement can be fulfilled. Look at what they agreed to: that Israel was going to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 60 days; that the Sunni army, which is the official Lebanese army, was going to take control of the area south of the Litani; that Hezbollah is going to go north, and that several places were red zones, where they couldn’t enter. This type of agreement is very difficult to fulfill because, among other things, Israel says, “We are inspired by and respect Security Council Resolution 1701, but we maintain the right to intervene militarily if we consider that it is not being fulfilled or that Hezbollah is rearming.” In other words, it has so many fragile conditions that supposedly, in theory, it would be impossible to fulfill. When would it be fulfilled? Until 60 days, when Biden leaves. I am skeptical of the outcome, but it may be that Hezbollah is so devastated after the attacks that it would be in its interest to comply.
– The death of Nasrallah and a large part of his terrorist leadership could also have been a reason for Hezbollah to agree to a deal…
– Certainly the fact that Hezbollah accepts an agreement like this, or the government of Lebanon, because I told you that it is an agreement between Israel and the United States, but it is also an agreement between the United States, France and the government of Lebanon. The government of Lebanon suddenly comes to the United States and serves it on a silver platter its greatest dream, which is to regain control over the country. Then the government of Lebanon, Sunnis and Maronites, will supposedly be happy that this is imposed. Now, in the last 20 years, can you imagine Hezbollah giving in to the official government of Lebanon that never took them into account? This shows you how weak Hezbollah is. However, before accepting the ceasefire, it fired 150 rockets on purpose at Israel, Tel Aviv and its surroundings, to demonstrate that they had not surrendered. Now there is a propaganda campaign to demonstrate that Hezbollah did not surrender and Israel to demonstrate that it achieved its objectives. Both, I think, are wrong.
– Beyond what you explained about Obama and Biden, do you think there could also have been some influence from Trump, given his closeness to Netanyahu and the fact that he is about to take office in the White House?
– That’s for sure. If the United States promises you that under Trump they will supply you with a lot of weapons to deal with and attack the most problematic, which is Iran, you do the math and it suits you. Because Israel does take responsibility for Lebanon, but it did not take responsibility for not attacking Syria in the flow of weapons to Lebanon. So if it now increases the attacks in Syria, you realize that the only thing you do is change the focus: you do not attack Hezbollah, but you attack whoever supplies it with weapons, or you prepare for a much more forceful attack against Iran. Israel did receive guarantees from the Biden Administration regarding Iran, and it is not clear what those guarantees are. But if you tell me what you prefer, attack Hezbollah or attack Iran, which is the head of this whole octopus, and then the octopus falls, the logical thing is that Israel concentrates more now on Iran when Hezbollah is so weak, or weaker than it was before.
– Following the massacre on October 7, the first direct attacks between Israel and Iran took place. And recently the regime said it is preparing to respond to the latest Israeli attack. How is Tehran doing today? Is it capable of confronting Israel?
– I don’t see him doubling down in a concrete and direct way. I do see him with several tendencies. The first, to accelerate the concretization of his military nuclear capacity. I do see it as problematic from an internal point of view; Iran has very serious economic problems, and Ali Khamenei either died or is about to die. So then you have to see if the son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is going to take power. You know well that when there is a new ruler, you have to see if he manages to take power and essentially dominate the Revolutionary Guard, which is loyal to him. If the uncle is dead, because he has advanced cancer and they said he was in a coma and so on, it could be that we are talking about a period in which they are internally trying to ensure the continuity of the regime. The most important thing for Iran now is to keep the regime standing. That shows you that they are weaker. So I do believe that they do not have the economic or military capacity to confront Israel. And I do think that attacks in other parts of the world may increase, like the assassination of this rabbi, for example, or possible attacks in various parts of the world, which is what Iran has done for years. What else can Iran do that it has not done? The last time in October when they attacked, they fired 181 ballistic missiles. The joke cost them $2.200 billion. They don't have that money.
– We know that Iran finances terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen… But if you say that it doesn’t have that money, then who finances the regime?
– It is a big oil seller. It supplies oil to China in particular through very small companies that bypass US sanctions and buy a huge amount of oil in a kind of black market. The Persian people are a much more educated people than the rest of the Middle East, they are also a much more secular people than the rest of the Middle East. I am optimistic about the possibility that the Persian people, when the conditions are created, will be encouraged to do more. We are seeing contractions of a pregnancy, where there are more and more demonstrations in less time and more intense. I think that it is a good formula if what Israel does is to weaken the regime to transmit to the Iranian population that they are not invincible. Because every time these people go out to demonstrate, the Basij soldiers, the internal police of the regime, appear and shoot people or beat them, so that frightens people. If Israel and the United States humiliate Iran, it is good for internal mobilization; you have to try to humiliate it by doing something that Iran cannot sustain. What Israel has done so far has not been to humiliate him that much.
– In line with this idea of “humiliating” Iran, and beyond the economic crisis and its internal situation, do you think that the US attack in which Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020 was the starting point of this weakening of the regime?
– Yes, because what happened before was that Israel damaged Iranian nuclear facilities and attacked physicists, but it didn’t take responsibility for it either. It was something that it had done, but it didn’t take responsibility. So, it was a way of humiliating Iran, but if you don’t take responsibility because you don’t want to pay the costs, then you don’t weaken the regime that much. Suddenly this guy Donald Trump comes along, makes an attack against the main figure of this idea of surrounding Israel as if you were an octopus. It was a very serious attack. I think that the Iranians do believe Trump, and that in the Middle East Trump is credible; he is a credible sheriff. Biden was a person mentally unfit for office, and also not very credible when it comes to intimidating. How do I realize this? Because Qatar, which is a great financier of terrorism, one of the first measures it takes after the election is to remove Hamas from its territory. Why does it do this? Because he understands that he is going to be stuck with this new ruler, so if the guy comes and intimidates as he apparently has until now, the chances of increasing calm are greater in the Middle East. In the Middle East, the more macho you are, the more you intimidate the crazies. So I think that in the Middle East specifically, Trump is going to bring more calm than war. In fact, notice that he signed a treaty that many people despised as something minor, like the Abraham Accords, which was a great goal. And I think that Israel, with the arrival of Trump, is going to sign peace with Saudi Arabia in months.
– An agreement that was on track until the attacks of October 7th happened. Beyond Trump’s arrival, why do you see it as viable now?
– There are two reasons why the non-radical Sunni Middle East is getting closer to Israel. First, the fear of Iran. Second, we are living in a post-oil historical period. Because of these two, Saudi Arabia is clearly getting closer to Israel; it got closer to such an extent that I believe it is one of the reasons why the attack of October 7th took place. Now, let’s look at the two conditions. An Iran that is too weak, pushes Israel’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia away. If Iran continues to be a threat, the Saudis get closer to Israel. So, I tell you again, it is good for Israel to hit Iran hard, but not too hard, because you cannot change the regime in Iran, it is not you who are responsible, but the local population. And I do believe that it is a strategic issue and it is an irreversible issue. If it wants to implement what Muhammad bin Salman said in his Vision 2030 program, Saudi Arabia cannot continue spending money that it will not have and it has to accelerate the diversification of its economy. Among other things, that is why it allows women to drive. It doesn't make sense to continue paying a million foreign employees to be drivers. It's an economic issue. You have to try to change something that you can't sustain economically. So I do believe that it's a strategic issue and that it's an irreversible process.
– Do you think the agreement with Hezbollah can have any effect on the conflict in Gaza against Hamas?
-I think that they are not related to each other, even though if Iran weakens, both of them weaken. Let's look at the four things that Israel has to achieve in order to say that it has won. Recover the hostages: 100 hostages who are still missing today, of which we imagine that half of them are not alive, at least. So, that is an unfinished issue. Second, you have to remove Hamas from power, and for that you have to put someone else in. It is unfinished. Third, you have to cut off the ways for them to reorganize and take power again. If Israel withdraws now, how long do you give it for Hamas to return to power? Unfinished. So, in order to make sure that Hamas does not rule, you have to make sure that someone is handing out food, and it is not Hamas, and it is not UNRWA. That issue is also unfinished. And finally, you have to weaken their war capacity: that is the issue that is on the best track. I told you three unfinished situations and one issue that is on the right track. If we follow this logic, the war has to continue in the Gaza Strip, but it will continue at a low intensity. I think it will not be a war where you will hit all the time, but it will not be part of the news. It will appear sporadically, every now and then, like what is happening today in the West Bank. It will be news if the Israeli government wrongly places settlements. Otherwise, this will probably continue, unless three changes occur in what you told you that is unfinished.
– As the war continues, the International Criminal Court issued a few days ago an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes. What do you think about this?
– Essentially, it is a political measure because it has no basis. The International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over a non-signatory country, and they invented that Palestine was a country when it really was not. And, on the other hand, it violates the principle of complementarity where a country that investigates itself cannot be invaded by the International Criminal Court. In other words, it contradicts the Court’s own principles. And, finally, when they talk about the use of hunger as a method of war, which is a violation of the law of war, they asked for a report to see if it was true and the report said it was not true. All of this makes it clear that it is a political measure. And since it is a political measure, Trump will probably sanction the International Criminal Agreement and this measure will come to nothing. It will not be implemented, because it is so absurd from a legal point of view that many Western countries simply will not give any importance to the measure; others could implement it, such as Spain.
– The attack on October 7 also brought a violent wave of anti-Semitism that we first saw with the protests at universities, the recent events in Amsterdam, coupled with hate speech on social media, and even in some international media. Why do you think this happened?
-Anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that has a history of 2000 years. It has the capacity to embolden any wretch who wants to put on airs as a champion of justice. Hatred of Jews gives the wretch the opportunity to boast as someone he is not. So it is very easy to use so many accumulated myths and prejudices to give yourself an air of grandeur. Petro, for example. He posts something against Israel every two days or so. We are talking about a former terrorist who identifies with terrorists, so it is not unusual. Now, having said that, anti-Semitism has another capacity. It has the capacity to mutate. When the most important thing in societies was religion, people were murdered in the name of religion. When the most important thing was race, people were murdered in the name of race. When the most important thing was the nation, they hated the Jew to protect the nation. And now, for certain groups, the most important thing is the defense of human rights. So Israel is blamed for all the bad things that happen to those who believe they defend human rights. That is an impressive capacity for mutation, and that is why it adapts to the central theme of certain agendas. Today, there are three main promoters of anti-Semitism: first, certain media outlets. Second, Muslim immigration in Europe and the United States. And the third group, which is the most dominant in Latin America, is the extreme left, which today has a clearly anti-Semitic discourse.
– But there is a huge contradiction in this account of human rights, because there is clearly no respect in the Gaza Strip. There is no place for gays there, women see their rights severely limited, and so on… So what is behind this?
-There are two things. The first theory is a formula to identify someone who believes himself to be a defender of human rights as a hypocrite. This hypocrisy of certain political sectors is known in various issues, not only in this. It is the typical millionaire who lives in total opulence, but raises the flag of socialism or is the defender of women's rights and then we hear that he raped women or harassed women. There are certain hypocritical behaviors that are part of the DNA of certain political groups. Second, there is the issue of intersectionality, which explains what I was saying before, and it is a whole way of seeing the world that divides humanity between good and bad. Who are the good guys? All women are good forever; all LGBT groups are always good; all men of color are always good; all indigenous people are always good; all Palestinians are always good; and the bad guys are the powerful; the powerful are the rich, the whites, the heterosexual man. Israel and the Jews have become an example of the powerful. These people who defend intersectionality say: the powerful always unite among themselves, we, the victims, must always unite. So that explains why LGBT groups raise the Palestinian flag. This ideology, intersectionality, which is so fashionable in universities and among the left, is an ideology that is essentially not intellectual. You realize that it has no logic. You cannot defend all causes, it has no internal logic. The intellectual baseness of these people makes you wonder, “Are they ignorant and don’t they know it?”
– To conclude. After what happened in Amsterdam, the Israeli authorities recommended that the Jewish population avoid sporting or cultural events, and if they did attend, to avoid clothing or insignia that identified them as such. This had a great impact on me. Do you consider, as many do, that this is the moment of greatest threat and danger for Jews since the Holocaust?
– Yes, because what happens is that this Islamic radicalism has penetrated Europe through five phases. The first phase is to create a community of believers; the second is to show itself, Islam is a public religion, it occupies public spaces, so the space is to create an autonomy that does not depend on the government; the fourth is to attack Muslims themselves who are not good Muslims; and the last level is to attack Jews and Christians. In almost all of Europe we have level 4 and 5. In Latin America we are at level 1 and 2. The security forces are quite concerned about everything I am telling you because they do not want to reach Europe. So the combination that exists in Europe of the Green-Red Alliance, which is the alliance between the left or the extreme left depending on the country, and Muslim immigration, is an alliance that affects Jews, but mainly affects Europe. I think that what you are seeing now is the beginning of the rise and coming to power of deep right-wing parties that are tired of any foreign immigrant wanting to change the social and political profile of countries and are also tired of political correctness. The Javier Milei phenomenon is an inspiring phenomenon for many people. It is a phenomenon of someone who verbally attacks and says that the extreme left is intellectually inferior, and attacks them culturally. That phenomenon, I think, is imitated and will be imitated even more by many. Many are fed up with political correctness, and many are fed up with ideological cancellation. We are heading towards that, and you will also see that in universities. We are going towards the Javier Milei phenomenon multiplied in many parts of the world.