Marta González Isidoro: ‘The time for politics and diplomacy seems to have passed into the background’

Reporter and journalist Marta González Isidoro, an expert international analyst, spoke on the programme ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid about Israel's strength and willingness to eliminate Hezbollah's operational and economic capabilities in Lebanon. She also analysed whether Israel has the military and economic capacity to keep all fronts open for a prolonged period of time. 

I read a post on the social network X that said that Israel has the strength and the will to eliminate the operational and economic capabilities of the entire Hezbollah structure and its possible replacement. The latest target was a meeting of senior leaders including Hassan Nasrallah's possible successor, Hashem Safieddine. The attack was one of the most intense.  

It was indeed one of the most intense attacks, but it should be remembered that beforehand the army, the Israel Defence Forces, made several hours of continuous appeals to the civilian population to clear the area. 

There was very precise intelligence information and Israel's objective, practically from the moment the beeper operation, the Walkie Talkie, etc., was launched, was to move on to a much clearer, much more forceful and much more effective deterrent action.  

The time for politics and diplomacy seems to have passed. Israel, with respect to the 7 October attacks, an event that marked a turning point in Israeli national consciousness, but also in the geopolitics of the Middle East and possibly on the international stage, has decided that it is no longer a secondary actor in a conflict that concerns it first hand and is determined to put an end to Hizbollah's capabilities and also to its possible replacement. 

During the war and the military actions in Gaza, during all this time, all this year, Israel has been very constrained by the position, by the pressure of the United States and by the pressure of the international community. Also by pressure from its own society, because we have to remember that Hamas still has 101 hostages in custody. Fifty of them are practically not known to be alive or dead. 

In Lebanon, Israel does not have this constraint because there are no hostages, there are no Israeli citizens. Therefore, it is very clear to him that the only way to put an end to Iran's will to finish off or destroy Israel is to first finish off the tentacles of the octopus. We will see, and this is a question that can be answered in the coming days, whether Israel, in addition to the will and the capability, will want to initiate a direct conflict with Iran.

Does ending terrorist sympathetic groups also mean ending the dictatorship of the ayatollahs in Iran?  

Israel does not have the will to end the regime in Iran. One of Israel's strategic objectives is not to overthrow the Iranian regime.  

Of course, it is a regime that it does not like, that is not a facilitator of agreements in the Middle East, but it is not a strategic objective to overthrow the Iranian regime. It is a strategic objective to end or limit Iran's offensive action against Israel and the Israeli population. Therefore, if it neutralises, minimises or ends the direct threat, in this case we are talking about Hezbollah, that would be important.  

A second step could be, instead of a general escalation in the whole Middle East, a situation involving the great powers... Because you have to remember one thing, a world war only breaks out when the superpowers want it to break out because they are fighting each other. At the moment, I honestly don't see a willingness on the part of the United States, Russia and China to directly confront each other.

So I think the conflict will be reduced to the regional margins. But it is possible that Israel will respond proportionately to the extent that it has been attacked and attack an oil refinery, for example, which is a critical Iranian infrastructure, but not one of the most important, but one that is of significant value to give it a wake-up call. It might not attack nuclear power plants, because that would be a casus belli, but, for example, a cyber attack or an attack on a missile launching platform that also has a symbolic value.

In other words, it is the fact of saying to Iran: ‘You have the will to eliminate me, but you don't have the capacity. I have the capability to eliminate you, but I don't have the will at the moment, so don't take the next step, because I have the capability and I can come to have the will as well’.

I was going to ask you about Israel's response to the launching of those 180 missiles. We don't know if you have any information on the damage they have caused, especially at any air bases in the Negev. It is going to be to cause a lot of damage, enough damage, little damage, to avoid an escalation of open and direct confrontation with Iran... Although I believe that at this moment it could be an opportunity; of course, not to attack nuclear power plants, that would be madness, but to attack uranium enrichment centres, centrifuges, the Iranian nuclear programme, which does represent a threat to the stability of the region and international stability.  

Yes, indeed. What has happened is that only three weeks ago Israel took the initiative, because it saw a window of opportunity in two ways. On the one hand, because the United States is engaged in the election campaign and, at the moment, it does not have the capacity to exert sufficient pressure on Israel to stop it. It does not have the capacity to exert pressure. Not from a legal point of view, but morally, it is asking for a restraint that it as a country, as the leading power, would not give itself if it were attacked as Israel has been attacked for the past year, to put it in perspective. 

Secondly, also in the run-up to the elections, Israel sees a parallel diplomatic process in international organisations and international criminal courts which, although legally groundless, politically and strategically could do Israel great harm, isolating it even further on the international stage. 

Its traditional partners are therefore very concerned about what Israel does or will do in the coming days and weeks. Why? Because a power, in order to be a power in the Middle East, has to speak the language of the Middle East. And the language of the Middle East has to be forceful enough for your enemies or your potential allies or your strategic allies to see an opportunity in you. And they see the opportunity if you are reliable. You are reliable and trustworthy in the sense that you are a military power, a political power, a technological power and, furthermore, you are offering, from a moral and democratic point of view, an alternative to the alliance that the enemy that is annoying you in the geopolitical sphere, who is your natural enemy, can give you, but you have no choice but to reach an agreement with him if you want to live together.  

And that is what Israel's strategic allies are seeing at the moment. That is why I believe that Israel is at the right moment to decide how it is going to respond to Iran in a sufficiently precise and forceful way so that the conflict does not escalate at the regional and international level, but also sufficiently forceful so that Iran is no longer tempted to launch direct attacks against Israeli military infrastructure, regardless of whether or not they hit these critical infrastructures. As was the case with the Nevatim base, Dimona or one of the two Israeli oil refineries.

Marta, we assume that until 5 November we have a scenario. After the elections on 5 November in the United States, there may be another. In the meantime, does Israel have the military and economic capacity to keep all fronts open and politically Netanyahu has backing? We are seeing these demonstrations in the streets driven by the families of the hostages, does he have the capacity to be able to sustain this situation for a prolonged period of time?  

The internal situation in Israel is beginning to become critical economically, because there is a year of war and a year of a situation in which half the population in the north and the south is displaced from their homes. 

In addition, a large part of the population is not working for religious or ideological reasons, and a large part of the population that is working is either a reservist or is deployed in operations during the war. As a result, the country's economic system, which is technologically very powerful, is being severely limited. It is true that Israel's security policy is based on very limited actions abroad, outside its borders, and at intervals of going in and out only to activate or deactivate precise elements. And that situation has changed because Israel is not prepared for such a long-term war. 

In that sense, on 5 October Israel will see if there is a significant change in the White House and with that also a significant change in US policy towards Israel. In the sense that there will be greater economic and military support, or that economic and military support will be withdrawn if Kamala Harris and the Democratic party that is more reluctant to maintain this strategic partnership with Israel come in.  

Precisely for this reason I believe that the Israeli government is taking advantage of this time because we must also remember that the latest measures taken by Netanyahu's cabinet, eliminating or removing from the equation the two most disruptive religious leaders in the government, and with the entry of Gideon Saab, will probably help him or keep him in power until 2025. That will bring about stability in the government and in parliament, also in the institutions, that, regardless of the pressures from the street, the cabinet will stay, the government will stay, and so it is a question of numbers here. And if the statistics and the numbers provide him with the necessary seats to push through laws until the end of the legislature, if Netanyahu is guaranteed to be able to hold out until 2025, until the next elections, he will have room for manoeuvre to manage this war.  

I believe that Netanyahu knows that this is his last chance, that he will not be re-elected and that he will bet on rebalancing society and prioritise national interests over party interests.